


The Corners Where Roads Cross

by alizarin_nyc



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:36:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alizarin_nyc/pseuds/alizarin_nyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins, as always, with a dead body. To reach the conclusion of the case, however, will require Sherlock and John to let go of what's reasonable, what's logical and the things that hold them back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Corners Where Roads Cross

**Author's Note:**

> [Link to Art!](http://in-the-bottle.livejournal.com/748995.html) by in_the_bottle
> 
>  **Word Count:** 24,550  
>  **Rating:** NC-17 overall  
>  **Characters/Pairings:** John Watson/Sherlock Holmes  
>  **Beta** This would not exist were it not for _doodle, words cannot express the gratitude I feel for beta duties above and beyond the call.  
>  **More on the Warnings** sexual context, dub-con, violence, strong language, character death (not that of John or Sherlock)

_Snow is falling, all is lost –  
the whitened passers-by,  
leaves’ startled showing,  
the corners where roads cross._

 _Snow is falling, all is lost,  
the whole world’s streaming past:  
the flight of steps on the back stairs,  
the corner where roads cross._

~ Boris Pasternak

 

There is a body lying in the snow and Sherlock is shouting.

“Anderson!” he roars. John has never seen him so livid. “This murderer is going to walk free because of your stupid, clumsy feet. Go over there!”

“Lestrade,” Anderson moans.

“Mummy!” Sherlock says in a high-pitched voice, mimicking Anderson’s inflection. “ _Lestrade_. Just look at what he’s done to your crime scene. I am wasting valuable time shouting at this imbecile. The snow is melting, can’t you _see_?”

Lestrade immediately sees, to his credit and he hauls Anderson away by the arm. “Everyone! Keep clear please, until forensics is done photographing the scene.”

“John,” Sherlock says, flinging out a hand toward him. “Start over there. Step only where the snow is already melted, and photograph the ground - photograph _meticulously_. Every shoe print. Every square centimetre. Go!”

John moves to the edge of the police tape. They’re inside Green Park after a snow storm that carried on throughout the night but had petered out as morning approached. Shoe prints form little arrows and circles, a pattern of clues. John takes out his phone and begins snapping pictures. He can see Sherlock on the opposite side of the body doing the same. Donovan is instructing a police photographer and they are working their way in the other direction. It’s strange to see Donovan bundled up against the cold, hair covered by an electric blue hat, complying without complaint to Sherlock’s instructions.

John focuses on the ground. It’s nearly 10 o’clock in the morning, the sky is bright and the snow on the ground is melting quickly. He snaps a few areas that have been clearly stepped on by a woman in high heels. There’s a triangle with a small stiletto-shaped circle, and it seems to indicate that she stopped, pivoted and then walked off in the other direction. A boot tread is visible, traveling in a straight line. The edges are melting but the centre peaks hold their shape. He and Sherlock are closer to each other now and Donovan and Lestrade have moved behind the tape. Anderson has stopped glaring at Sherlock and is examining the body.

How did he get here? John never fails to be amazed at how effortlessly he has been accepted at every crime scene involving Sherlock. Here he is, allowed to do a bit of police work at Sherlock’s discretion using his personal phone in the middle of a taped off crime scene. It’s probably illegal and a bit ridiculous and one day there will be a court case that falls apart because of Lestrade’s use of “a consulting detective and his assistant.” But that day has yet to come.

Dollops of snow start to fall. One splatters on John’s face. The trees are shifting and their powdered branches are releasing the nighttime’s accumulation. John is closer to the body now. It’s a young man in his twenties. He’s been stabbed, like the other men they’ve discovered in the last week, but this time over and over and over. This time, it’s as if the murderer wanted to destroy every part of him. There are even stab wounds in his feet and hands. Dark blood pools out in every direction, soaking the snow.

Sherlock isn’t looking at the corpse. He knows about the other two murdered men, of course, and had beamed knowingly when Lestrade rang him this morning. The snowfall is what makes this one different on the surface, and Sherlock wants to take in as much stimuli as he can. He stands, framed by the crosshatching of black tree branches, his dark silhouette so familiar now. The shape of his coat, the knotted scarf at his neck, the tousled hair and eyes that miss nothing - this is Sherlock. John forgets himself for a minute and stares.

He shakes his head. It’s a bit not good after all, to stare that way at Sherlock, even though plenty of people do. Some for a variety of reasons: with curiosity, with longing, with admiration, with disgust, with anger - Sherlock elicits something from everyone.

Now he is eliciting promises from Lestrade about background files and full access to the pathology reports. It ends with “do you want my help or not,” to which there is only one possible answer Lestrade can give. He is not doing a serial murder case without Sherlock.

On the way to the morgue, John finds himself distracted by the snow-covered scenery and snarled traffic. Sherlock mumbles to himself and asks John questions that don’t quite make sense and then sneers at his answers.

They stay in the room during the post-mortem and Sherlock has to be warned three times not to shout insults at the pathologist. Everything is being fast-tracked now that they know they have an honest-to-god serial killer, but it’s never fast enough for Sherlock, who is itching to touch the body himself, to put his fingers in the wounds like doubting Thomas did to Jesus.

The knife wounds gape at John like a thousand tiny mouths and it’s amazing that one person could stab someone else so many times. At what point did the murderer think it was enough? Some places have been stabbed over and over, until bone and muscle are revealed and clothing shredded. Bits that were once the man’s suit and coat now lie in tangled strips in a metal bowl.

The pathologist begins noting each wound for the record. Lestrade shifts on his feet and sighs.

“It’s just as I thought,” Sherlock says suddenly. “Murder on the Orient Express, how dull.”

“Sorry?” Lestrade looks worried.

“Don’t be an idiot. Some wounds are shallower than others, different angles, different strengths. More than one murderer. They all did it. Or at least, that’s what we’re meant to think.”

“Thank you, Poirot,” John says, “But who are _they_?”

“I have an idea,” Sherlock says, leaning closer to John so Lestrade can’t hear. “Shall we return to Baker Street?”

John can’t really say no.

~*~

Hours pass wherein John is too busy downloading photographs and printing them out and fielding police reports for Sherlock and phone calls from Lestrade and Donovan to think about much else. He supposes it’s lucky that Sarah has trimmed down his hours at the surgery. She intimated that it was because he’s unreliable. John has never been unreliable in his life. It’s rather shocking how things have turned out. He seems to be doing the opposite of what he expected to do when he returned to London, what he thought he _wanted_ to do. Although he _has_ settled down, in a sense, just not as a perpetual bachelor or a married man, but rather as Sherlock’s partner, or personal assistant, or whatever it is he is. He’s pretty sure flatmates don’t spend almost every waking hour together and colleagues generally don’t live together and make each other tea and toast. Although John does the making and Sherlock does the drinking of the tea and the poking of the toast.

By the end of the day, all the available wall space in the flat is covered top to bottom in print-outs of the photographs from the park. If he squints, it’s almost as if he’s back at the crime scene, looking down from above. Spread out on their shared desk are autopsy photos, reports from Lestrade’s team and pictures of the three men that have been killed so far.

Sherlock has been scanning the crime scene reports for about an hour, after arranging and rearranging the park photos so that they fit together almost seamlessly. There is a five-minute break for Sherlock to shout about John’s lack of photographic precision, unsteady hand and the police photographer’s inappropriate use of automatic settings. Then there is a brief recap of the prints left by Anderson’s shoe covers and how idiocy will inevitably lead to murderers going free and strolling about stabbing the general public.

John rubs his eyes. The sharp angles and contrast of the photos are starting to blur together.  
Footprints and knife wounds become a swarm of dots in his vision, endless black birds circling, bloody arrows and incomprehensible geometry.

“John?” Sherlock is at his side, bending over to peer into his face. “Get some rest, you’re no use to me like this.”

“What about you?” John retorts, without much heat. He knows Sherlock can go for days before needing to sleep. He is practically inhuman when it comes to unsolved cases. “You need...”

“For you to stop wasting my time and distracting me with your yawns and blinks and lip-smacks. If you’re going to be exhausted, do it _quietly.”_

John sheepishly stands up from the desk and moves to the sofa. An hour, two tops, and he can get right back at it. He’ll run the data on the men’s ex-lovers one more time, look again for a connection. He’s sure Sherlock is ahead of Scotland Yard anyway, but when did it become a race?

 _Rhetorical question,_ he thinks as his eyes drift closed.

~*~

Sherlock can clearly see where each person walked, which footprints belong to tourists, which ones are early morning joggers’ and which ones are the killers’. He chuckles to himself as he sees a pair of trainers and imagines a scenario. Stopping here. Screaming here. Running for the police over here. The stilettos are interesting, but the smaller boots are even more so.

He thinks there are three killers, one for each victim at present, but that one of them is considerably more dangerous than the others. The one that couldn’t stop.

Sherlock pauses to look over at John. He’s so peaceful when he’s sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. His head is thrown back, one arm up and over, the other curled neatly at his side. It’s all Sherlock can do not to crawl on top of him and bury his head in John’s neck. It would be warm there, and he could think. But John would not approve of that. That would be something _too much_ , too intimate, for them.

Sherlock supposes that at some point, there might be a night when he will suddenly turn to John and kiss him, and John will reciprocate. John will almost be expecting it, but he’ll moan and protest and claim to be straight. His body will say differently, though, and Sherlock will press this advantage. Maybe it won’t go that way at all. It should be frustrating not to know, but instead it’s delightful.

He shakes his head to clear it of the tangent it’s chosen to take and refocuses everything he has on the case.

Three men are now dead. They are all in their late 20’s. They are all fairly fit, passably handsome, all of them were bachelors, and all seemed to have had an active social life.

It’s just as Sherlock is pondering what the three of them have in common that his phone chimes.

 _Can I come up? -Lestrade_

Sherlock texts back in the affirmative. When Lestrade is let in, Sherlock shushes him and points to the sofa. Lestrade frowns a bit and makes motions with his hands.

“He’s out cold. Just speak softly. It isn’t that difficult,” Sherlock says in low tones. Lestrade seems ill at ease with the fact that Sherlock is being considerate of someone else, but that’s got to be his problem, for now. However, Sherlock needs to hear what Lestrade has to say. They move into the kitchen.

“Okay,” Lestrade begins, “Donovan is emailing you the preliminary reports from today. We’ve got a long list of people connected to the suspect through online social networking sites, Facebook and the lot, they’ve all got the sort of media savvy you’d expect of the kids these days.” Lestrade grimaces. Sherlock knows that Lestrade eschews the ease of new media, and that it makes him irritable when confronted by the overload of mostly irrelevant personal information he has to slog through during a case.

“Each man had a fairly lucrative career, none were suffering financially or socially, no enemies to speak of, everyone says they’re decent blokes,” Lestrade continues. “You said more than one killer, that seems to bear out, however, couldn’t this just be a crime of opportunity? Killer... or gang of killers, grab whomever is on their way home from whatever posh bar they’ve been in. Pick a fight, nick a watch... and then get free and easy with the knives?”

“Posh bars. Yes. Not pubs.” Sherlock skims the new information that pings his phone with increasing excitement. “They don’t do pubs. They’re too good for pubs. They want to go out with models, drink top-shelf liquor. Look at these photos. They show men who are interested in good looks, in being single, no photos of girlfriends, but plenty of girls. Serial daters.”

“A serial killer is killing serial daters?” Lestrade looks affronted. “The first victim had something like 11 ex-girlfriends.”

“Of course. But none more than a year. This one, Joseph Mantell, had 8 exes, 768 friends on Facebook. He was drugged, draped over a headstone at Highgate and stabbed fourteen times. Foursquare puts our first victim, Sam Shortwell at Pacha no less than 12 times in the last month. His Twitter feed is an atrocious stream of misogynistic drivel and his medical records show treatment for sexually transmitted diseases more often than average. He was found in Southwark Park, two days after his death, drugs in his system, stabbed eight times, but he probably bled out after the killers cut off his...”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Lestrade interrupts with a small shudder.

“They’re all smooth operators. Unassuming sexual predators with willing sexual partners. Members of several online dating sites and claiming to be looking for a relationship. And then they probably never phone. They text their conquests for late night hookups, obviously.”

Lestrade stares at him, mouth slightly askew. “Sherlock, honestly, _Foursquare?_ What the hell is that?”

“Location-based social network, highly rated by Mashable. Do I have to explain everything?”

“How do you know...?”

“Are you really asking me that question?” Sherlock snaps. “How do I know? _How do I know?_ Well, how do I know anything? I’m naturally knowledgeable, surely you’ve guessed that.”

Lestrade rubs at the corners of his eyes. “Look, I haven’t had any sleep and you haven’t offered me any coffee. So I know I sound like a lunatic, but have I ever told you how much I appreciate you?” He looks honest-to-God appreciative, as if having a place to go at 3 a.m. to discuss the latest case in an intelligent and productive manner is a miracle. And given his team, it probably is.

“Hm,” Sherlock says. He hides his smile, fairly effectively, if he knows himself. “You know where the kettle is if you’re gasping.”

~*~

When John wakes, the flat is empty. It’s light outside, so he’s overslept, but a relentless sleet is coming down, there’s a traffic tiff on Baker Street and everyone involved is leaning on their horns. He feels like shit.

He looks down and sees that he’s covered with a blanket. That’s Sherlock, acting like a human being and making the rest of his callousness seem calculated. John folds the blanket, puts the kettle on, and fires up the computer. He checks his phone.

 _Visiting suspects with Lestrade.  
Text with anything remotely useful._  
-SH

 _We’re out of milk._  
-SH

John knows that Sherlock is easily bored by routine questioning of suspects, but he must have hit a dead end to have ventured out in the cold with Lestrade.

John settles in with his black tea and tries to get to know the dead men.

At lunchtime, Sherlock stomps into the flat and throws himself into his chair with his coat pulled tightly around him. John tries not to laugh.

“That sort of a morning?”

“I am once again reminded,” Sherlock says, “that regular policework is Sisyphean. Lestrade insists on pushing the rock uphill for hours when five minutes can eliminate a suspect. He’ll take days to do what I could do in an half an hour, not factoring in traffic.”

“That Lestrade,” John says, “Following procedure so he can build his case. It’s abominable.”

“It is!” Sherlock nearly jumps out of his chair. “Of course, you’re being facetious. It doesn't suit you, John, I must say.”

“I feel suited though. Tea?”

“Please.”

From the kitchen John continues the conversation. “Find anything interesting?”

“Only their mothers will truly mourn them, and I’m not even sure why that should be.”

“That’s the same conclusion I’ve come to,” John says, tapping the kettle impatiently while it takes its own sweet time. “Not exactly princes, our victims. Plenty of bad form on the internet, and you can get away with a fair bit on there.”

“I’ve known more personable criminals. But they were young and rich. Spoiled, handsome, I suppose there wasn’t any reason for them to have personalities.” Sherlock sounds petulant and that makes John slightly curious.

“You’ve never put any stock in personality, Sherlock. You surprise me.”

“Of course I put stock in personality, John, when it comes to a case. Just because I don’t care if someone is _nice_ or _interesting_ or _asinine_ doesn't mean I don’t want to know if that is what led to them being killed.”

“Ah, of _course_.”

“Now, aside from wasting my time by having to explain to you what is perfectly obvious, have you turned up anything from the comfort of your laptop? And you’re buying new cushions for the sofa - did you think I wouldn’t notice that you dribbled on them all night?”

“I think you’d find a DNA sample from the material would show just as much of your spit on them as mine. Here’s your tea, you’re welcome.” John returns to the desk and flips open his laptop. “I see you’ve already been looking,” he says, frowning. “How do you do that?”

Sherlock smiles. “Needs must, John, as you know.”

“Well, I think that these men were chosen carefully, and I think the murderers are female. Which is unusual, but we should look for three women connected with them who give each other an alibi for the time of the murders.”

“John you often fail to amaze me, but I am actually quite pleased it took you less time than it is taking Lestrade to arrive at this conclusion.”

“So you think so too?”

“I think we are going to find our killers amongst the women these men knew, went out with, slept with. The games people play.” Sherlock throws up his hands. No shortage of melodrama today, then. “Yes, I think they are women,” he continues. “Lestrade is pursuing the work angle, since they held jobs with different financial institutions. However, it’s erroneous because they all had different roles.”

“Hm,” John replies noncommittally because he has no idea what people in “finance” actually do. “The problem is, there are going to be _lots_ of women.”

They work silently and steadily for several hours. In the evening, the doorbell rings and John and Sherlock ignore it. Mrs Hudson sometimes has friends drop by and if it had been Lestrade, he would have texted or phoned first. Harry still isn’t speaking to John, although she did visit him in hospital after the swimming pool business.

The doorbell goes again, followed by the sound of urgent knocking.

“John, your takeaway.”

“Not mine,” John says, stopping to ponder the Facebook page of a particularly attractive woman and photos of her in a bikini.

“Determined bastard, think you ought to check,” Sherlock says as a vigorous rapping starts up.

“Why don’t you check?” John is tired, and therefore, a bit petulant.

“Where’s Mrs Hudson?” Sherlock stares at him as if he is the housekeeper’s keeper.

“She has a life you know.”

Sherlock goes back to ignoring him. _Fine._

John sighs and gets up, making his way downstairs, exaggerating his psychosomatic limp for effect, of which it has absolutely none on Sherlock.

People rarely come on purpose to Baker Street to seek out Sherlock Holmes. Sure, a few intrepid journalists try to speak with him by knocking on the door when he doesn’t answer their emails or calls, but mostly, in modern-day London, people do not do house visits.

“Hello, can I help you?” John turns a polite and hopefully cool and professional smile at the young woman standing on his doorstep.

“Yes. I hope so. I’m Emily Nance, I’m here to talk to someone named Sherlock Holmes.” She pauses and looks uncertain. “He lives here, yeah?”

“Yes, he does. Does he, um, know you?”

“No, he doesn’t. I just want to talk to him. Do you think I could have a minute?”

John has been much more wary of strangers since meeting Sherlock, and he tries to make a reasonable assessment of how potentially dangerous the thin, nervous-looking woman could be. She has short hair, a long, delicate neck, a petite frame; she is wearing squared-off glasses, a hoodie, jeans and trainers. She’s pretty, and John feels a small spark of attraction, the sort of thing he feels on an almost daily basis. London, after all, is full of very beautiful women.

He leads her upstairs and introduces her to Sherlock. As expected, Sherlock huffs and then ignores her, glaring at John.

John’s momentarily forgotten that their flat looks like a crime scene, sans actual crime, and that the photos and diagrams could be a little disturbing to just about anyone but them. He coughs embarrassingly, and shrugs, steering her toward his chair, which faces away from the most gruesome photos.

“Sherlock, you have a visitor. Remember when people used to interact face-to-face? Well, you could also remember some manners, or give it your best performance.” John turns to Emily. “I’m just putting the kettle on. Tea?”

“That sounds lovely,” she replies, giving him a nervous grin. He leaves her to it, there’s no point in trying to shield her from Sherlock. Best to jump right in. He hears them speak while he’s in the kitchen. She tells him that she saw his name in the papers. She tells him she’s nervous about going to the police, and that she’s not even sure she knows anything of any use. Then she tells him she read his website and knew - _just knew_ \- that he was the one she needed to seek out.

“And here you are,” Sherlock says, cutting her off midstream. “While it’s enjoyable to find someone who appreciates my methods and disdains Scotland Yard, I’m really only interested in why you are here. Why _are_ you here, Ms. Nance?”

“I think I know who’s been killing those men,” she says. John perks up immediately and hurries the tea along so he can join the conversation. He brings Emily a mug and seats himself with his own on the sofa.

“Where’s mine?” Sherlock asks.

“Waiting for you to make it,” John answers. “You think you know the suspects?”

“I’m not sure, but they - some former friends - did talk about getting revenge, and the conversations were pretty graphic.”

“John talks about killing me all the time, it doesn’t mean he actually intends to do it, much less has the cleverness to carry it off,” Sherlock says. His eyes have narrowed and his neck has relaxed and the only way John knows he’s still mildly interested in the girl’s story is that he hasn’t yet thrown her out. “How is this any different from any number of emotional and melodramatic women’s conversations about the men who’ve wronged them?”

“Because they were so much worse,” Emily says, raising her chin and meeting Sherlock’s eyes. “They talked about... about stabbing them, shooting them, poisoning them, and how they’d get away with it. The plans were _detailed_. They’d find out where they’d be - the men - and how we’d take turns, you know, I would talk to one of theirs and they’d talk to one of mine, and we would surprise them, and there were drugs we’d put in their drinks, and...”

“Slow down,” John says. He assumes the role of doctor and leans forward, concerned. She’s sitting in his chair and seems to sink into it. He imagines that she feels a bit vulnerable, trying to convince two strangers that she has something to contribute to a murder inquiry. All while sitting in their flat, poorly lit and stuffed with strange ephemera, covered in crime scene photos, the sum total all adding up to a dark, uncomfortable atmosphere. Sherlock’s attitude isn’t helping, but John is used to that by now.

“All I’m asking is that you consider looking into them. I don’t want them to know it was me - I don’t want them showing up on my doorstep after being harassed by the police. I just can’t sit by in case - in case they’re actually doing what they said they’d would.”

“We’ll consider it, Ms. Nance,” Sherlock says. He sits up straighter and motions to John. “John, take notes if you would please. Start from the beginning. I’m listening.”

~*~

John has a cramp in his hand by the end of the interview and he escorts Emily to the door. She seems exhausted, and when he opens the door for her, a strong, freezing wind slams into them, causing her to involuntarily step back. John steadies her. The wind is high-pitched and frenzied, shaking the bones of Baker Street.

“Hope you’re getting a taxi,” John says.

“Not in my budget,” Emily says. “I can walk. It’ll be easier than two changes on the tube or a bus.”

“Let me walk you,” John says, his inner gentleman overcoming his more superficial need to stay indoors with a blanket. “I’ll just be a minute.”

He darts upstairs to retrieve coat, scarf and better footwear.

“Take my scarf, yours is a flimsy excuse,” Sherlock says without needing to ask where John is going. “Pay for a taxi if you need to.”

John scoffs. “Exercise won’t kill me, and it wouldn't kill you either. Why don’t you come along?” John knows his voice betrays him; he doesn’t want Sherlock tagging along, making insane comments and pretending to be ignorant of John’s flirting. If he didn’t know better, John would think Sherlock was the biggest cock-block on the planet.

“ _Case_ , John, there’s a case on. In fact, I really can’t spare you. Make it quick if you must do the honorable thing. But don’t cut through Regent’s, there are murderers about.”

John sighs. He wraps Sherlock’s enormous scarf around him and tries to summon the elation he first felt at the idea of walking a pretty girl home. “I’ll get a taxi straight back if that will make you feel better.”

“Much.”

The wind continues to bite as Emily and John set out, and what starts as a stroll soon turns into a struggle. John gives up and hails a taxi, despite Emily’s protests. He sits as near to her as he dares in the darkened backseat as she directs the driver to her flat. It’s close enough to Camden to have been quite a long walk, and John is rather relieved the weather dictated a more comfortable route. He talks about his time in the Army, how he came to be flatmates with Sherlock, and asks her a few innocuous questions to determine that she does not have a flatmate herself, is currently unemployed and has few friends outside of the ones she’d mentioned in the flat - Rebecca, Alice and Lucy.

John frowns and turns his head toward the window. Hearing their names again reminds him of his impressions based on Emily’s descriptions. Posh and pretty, a group of women addicted to clothes, alcohol and gossip. The subtle shift had happened over time, Emily said, as they became increasingly bitter with each disappointment, led primarily by Alice, who seemed to be the ringleader.

“How did you lose your job?” John asks. “Sorry if it’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s fine,” Emily says, but he can see that it’s not fine. “My employer and I had a disagreement which ended my role with the company.” John opens his mouth to ask what company but decides against it. He wonders how she managed to maintain the lifestyle she’d just outlined for Sherlock or if her friends appreciated her for different qualities. Maybe they didn’t mind paying for her drinks. While Emily was pretty, she certainly didn’t come across as posh, and if she eschewed taxis, how likely was it she could afford the club scene in London, the clothes, the booze? _Well, look at me and Sherlock,_ John thought. _Chalk and cheese and we still get on all right._

“We’re here,” Emily says, breaking John’s train of thought.

“I’ll see you to the door,” John says, and brooks no argument as he pays the driver.

“You’re very kind,” Emily says, standing in the yellow light that comes to life sensing motion outside her door. “I’m not sure about Sherlock Holmes, great detective that he is, but you’re a good man.”

“Sherlock isn’t all bad. He’s an acquired taste.”

“At first I thought... well, it’s seems stupid now, but I thought you were a couple.”

“Not an uncommon mistake, that,” John says, pursing his lips and wondering what it is exactly that sets their friendship apart from ordinary friends or flatmates. “But he’s married to his work, and I’m single as it happens.”

“Great,” she says, and John agrees. “Would you like to come up for a bit?”

John hesitates, and in that moment, two things happen. The sound of a piano comes from somewhere above, someone’s playing in Emily’s building. He can make out the sounds of Verdi’s Requiem, and it’s haunting in the dark, windy street. It reminds him of Sherlock and his violin and suddenly he wants to be back at their flat, discussing the case. He _needs_ to be there. Sherlock told him to be quick and here he is considering spending another hour or two, or even more, in a young woman’s company - a young woman who had confessed to an emotional revenge fantasy on a man that had wronged her.

“Honestly, I’d love to see you again,” John stutters. He wars with himself internally for a moment. He sighs. “I do have to get back now, though, as Sherlock will have started experiments involving stabbing the chicken I got out for dinner, and God only knows what the fate of the veg will be.”

She smiles. She nods. She holds his eyes for a moment. “Yes,” she says, more solemn than John thinks necessary. “Go to Sherlock. Solve the case. You both have my number.”

Alone in the cab on the way home, John hums Verdi and wonders what Alice, Rebecca and Lucy are like. He also picks the restaurant he’ll ask Emily out to once this is all over.

~*~

Sherlock finds himself caught up in a series of nearly meaningless tasks while he waits for John to return. It’s possible, he finally concedes, that John won’t return. He knows when John is attracted to someone and though his concern for the case seemed to outweigh his libido, Sherlock was attuned to the thin line that started from John and wound its way to Emily Nance. He would have liked to dismiss her outright.

That wasn’t the best course of action, and so he quickly changed course, pursued her story as she told it in fits and starts, but with surprising clarity for details. He let the snapshots of a group of silly women shuffle around in his mind. That a set of vapid, useless creatures could enact the kind of grotesque revenge that left three men eviscerated in various parts of London was difficult to comprehend. He’d started building their profiles from the online networks and there were indeed, several connections to the victims.

Still, there’s something missing.

It’s a ghostlike question in the back of his mind that keeps him occupied while he checks his email, makes more tea and tunes his violin.

He needs to discuss this with John. Where is he?

He gets up to pace and thrums his fingers against the wall where he’s adhered his social networking map. Tiny photos of people, most likely only peripherally related to the case. This one here, Tim, connected to one victim, and connected to five girls, those girls all fans of a rock group that the latest victim, Simon, had seen last year in concert. A connection, a thousand connections just like it. Two to three degrees of separation is all that might keep the murderers from the victims, but there are thousands of different combinations with nothing obvious leading him to any conclusions. With luck, Emily Nance will provide a shortcut.

Sherlock turns away and picks up the violin. What if all this has nothing to do with the murders? Sherlock would much prefer it that way. He would prefer a clear-cut criminal case. The men are being blackmailed for money, they’re drug dealers that got in over their heads, or random victims in a crime spree by a narcissistic psychopath. Speaking of, his favorite psychopath is still at large, and this is taking time away from his dogged pursuit of Moriarty.

Moriarty. Anything, really, _anything_ but this web of seeming normality, an overwhelming amount of digital information and petty social interactions, would suit him much better.

Sherlock sighs and picks at the violin strings. He strains for the sound of John’s tread on the stairs. He refuses to think about how vital John has become. It will change, eventually, and Sherlock will either be alone again or in a different phase of his life. Their relationship cannot stay on a plateau, it will rise or fall, but it won’t stand still.

He tips his bow, acknowledges an invisible audience, and begins to play.

~*~

John comes home to the strains of something familiar pouring out of the front room. Sherlock is on his violin, exorcising some sort of frustration. It’s not dissonant, it’s beautiful and when John lets himself in, he tells Sherlock so. Sherlock makes no comment so John flips open his laptop and begins his perusal of the news. It’s late now, and he knows he should be sleeping, but he’s wide awake after his time in the brisk, cold wind, and the music is amazing.

There’s nothing to see on his laptop so he eventually gives up and lies down on the sofa. A few minutes more, that’s all he needs, and he can tear himself away from the music. He stares at the photos lined up on their wall and the circling shoe prints in the snow start to look like musical notes. He’s drifting, and the notes come away from the wall and form a figure that looks like Sherlock. The figure puts a blanket over him and he’s warm.

After what feels like minutes but has probably been hours, John feels the blanket around him tightening, then he feels a cold chill. He shivers but can’t breathe. Someone looms over him. He startles awake but can’t remember where he is or what day it is. Hands on his face draw him up and out of his sleep and there’s a voice - Sherlock’s - speaking with some urgency.

“John. John. John. Wake up now, and focus. Where did she live? Where?”

John has no idea what Sherlock is on about but after three or four repetitions and instructions to _focus_ , he guesses it’s their visitor from the night before. He babbles out the address.

“What is it? Sherlock?” He pushes up into Sherlock, who is sitting on the sofa, pressed up tightly against his hip, John’s face still in his hands. Their faces get uncomfortably close for a minute, and Sherlock doesn’t pull his hands away. It’s a lot like the time Sherlock spun him around on the train tracks. As if Sherlock wanted to pull the information out of John’s brains with his fingertips.

Sherlock glances at John’s lips and then breaks contact, quickly. John chalks it up to his bad breath and stumbles off the sofa, nearly tripping over the coffee table. Sherlock is at his laptop, then moves to his phone, waving at John with one hand in a sweeping motion. John recognizes the international sign for _get moving_ and rights himself, shakes his head and heads for the toilet.

Eight minutes later they are sprinting down Baker Street in search of a taxi. Sherlock is nearly run over, but at last he flags one down and the sky turns a pearly grey as they speed off.

“I’m so sorry, John,” Sherlock says.

“What for? Waking me? It’s obviously... well, it’s important right?” John wonders if Emily is in danger, or if she’s realized something new to add to the case. Sherlock looks out of the window and says nothing. “Sherlock?”

“I’m afraid that there’s been another murder, John. This time, it’s a young woman. The address is the same as Emily’s flat.”

John’s world goes grey for a minute as he processes this information. His feelings are a jumble; guilt, rage, a fleeting hope that some other woman is dead in Emily’s flat, fear, then guilt again. If she hadn’t come to Sherlock, if he hadn’t taken her home, if he’d stayed...

He feels a strange sensation on his forearm and looks down to find Sherlock awkwardly gripping it. Sherlock still isn’t looking at him, so he supposes this is the best he can do for comfort, and it’s clear Sherlock isn’t feeling particularly aggrieved. But if he’s honest, John doesn’t want Sherlock to feel sadness or guilt or any of the things John is feeling. He wants him to be focused on catching the persons responsible. The sky darkens as they pull up in front of Emily’s flat.

“It’s going to rain,” Sherlock says, and then he’s off, cutting past the police tape that has been hastily erected, brushing off the preliminary officers that have arrived on the scene. It looks like they beat Lestrade, John can’t see his car as he rushes after Sherlock. For a minute, as he’s following the swishing tail of Sherlock’s coat up the narrow stairs, John forgets that he has met the victim, and falls into the familiar pattern of chasing after his flatmate.

That moment vanishes as he enters the flat and sees Emily, dressed in the same clothes as the night before, her throat slit from ear to ear and blood everywhere in her tiny flat. He rubs his hand against his mouth.

“Take a moment, John, then back to work,” Sherlock says. “I will need you.”

Officers are trying to shoo Sherlock away, but John takes the time to patiently explain that Lestrade called them, that this is Sherlock, _yes, that one,_ , and that he is going to be immensely useful in solving this murder, so please, please, don’t argue, let the man throw his coat at you and examine the crime scene.

Soon enough, Lestrade is thumping up the stairs, looking about as fresh as John feels, and clutching a takeaway coffee in his hand. There isn’t much room for maneuvering, so John backs into Emily’s kitchen and waits for Sherlock to beckon him forward.

He has nothing to add. It’s obvious to everyone that she knew her killer; there is no forced entry and there are no defensive wounds. Sherlock is texting quite a bit and John suspects he’s following up on the other three women. Sherlock and Lestrade exchange looks, words, glances, and John feels fairly extraneous. He is about to get a glass of water from Emily’s sink full of dirty dishes when Donovan shows up.

“Oh good you’re here,” Lestrade beckons her toward the corpse, but only John can see that something is wrong. She drops her coffee straight onto the floor and pitches forward. He darts from behind the kitchen counter and grabs her arm. “Sally?” Lestrade calls. “Sally!”

Donovan’s hand is over her mouth and John feels her sag back against him. “Sir, don’t you recognize her? It’s Emily Nance, from Covert Operations.”

Lestrade’s face is still a blank. “Never heard of her, sorry,” he mumbles. “We should ah... replace you on this case.” Donovan nods and John maneuvers her to a chair at Emily’s tiny table.

Sherlock moves toward John and grabs his arm. “You’re better with her,” he hisses into John’s ear. “Find out what we need to know and let’s get out of here.”

“Sherlock,” John tugs his arm away from Sherlock. “A bit of decency, man.”

“Decency won’t protect the rest of the women. Or the men, whose case we are still working on.”

“You don’t think they’re connected?”

“Of course they’re connected, I just don’t know how. Yet.” Sherlock is still hissing into John’s ear and his breath smells like stale cigarettes. John jerks his head away. Right, focus on Sally Donovan. He and Lestrade perch around the table. The cheap light-shade swings slightly and casts shadows on Donovan’s face. John thinks she hasn’t been sleeping well, but then again, none of them have.

“We were friends,” Donovan says. “Colleagues. She was working on sex trafficking cases when I first started in Homicide. She was good.” Donovan looks over at the body but John can’t tell what she’s thinking. “She was 30 but looked 23, and she was bright. I don’t know how... I don’t know... what she’s doing here. I haven’t spoken to her in three years. We had a falling out, a disagreement.” Donovan pauses. She looks up and meets Sherlock’s eyes over Lestrade’s shoulder. He’s standing by the body but looking at her. “About you,” she says. “She thought you were brilliant, read a few reports, talked to people who worked with you. We argued about it a few times, but we were also working long hours and we drifted apart.”

“She came to see us last night,” John says.

“She came to see _me_ ,” Sherlock interjects. “She came to see me. You’re right, Donovan, she was bright, and she was onto something. Something that got her killed.”

“If you got her killed,” Donovan says, “If you had anything to do with it, if you could have stopped it...”

“You’re suddenly on a caring lark, then?” Sherlock sneers. “Where have you been the past three years, good-friend Sally, when your dear BFF was in trouble? When she started using drugs? When her career fell apart?”

Donovan’s mouth is open, and John isn’t sure his is closed. Sherlock’s tone is particularly supercilious. Also, _BFF?_.

“What? Sherlock, if this is conjecture...” Lestrade interjects.

“I don’t do conjecture,” Sherlock says.

“You’ve read her files?” Lestrade asks.

“I don’t need to read her files,” Sherlock says. “I know a former junkie when I see one. Septum damage from cocaine. Two books on addiction propping up her television. She’s clean, but barely. And probably wouldn’t have stayed that way.”

“She’s not like that,” Donovan protests. “This is ridiculous. Lestrade, please, tell him to stop.”

“Calm down, everyone. I can’t think,” Lestrade says, sighing loudly and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Donovan, I want you to look into where she’s been the past few years, who are her friends, enemies, that sort of thing. Sherlock, if you’re quite through, we’ll finish up with the body and the pathologist can get on with it.” Lestrade knows better than to let them snipe at each other all night and in fact, Donovan looks angry but still fragile.

John thinks there’s probably a lot more to the story. It suddenly feels cramped and hot inside the tiny flat, and John squeezes Donovan’s hand (whether she’d like him to or not) and with a last look at Emily’s body on the floor, excuses himself.

The sky outside is only a slightly lighter shade of gray. A tangle of branches overhead drips moisture from Sherlock’s accurately predicted rain shower onto his head and shoulders. He can hear Sherlock muttering behind him and bids goodbye to his last peaceful moment of the day.

~*~

“It’s going to snow,” Sherlock says idly as they get out of the cab on a street in Islington. A fox stares at them from across the street then darts into an empty building.

“Earlier you said rain. Your cleverness now extends to predicting the weather, eh?” John says.

“No, you do. Your shoulder is stiff. Plus I saw it on the news this morning. Rain, turning to snow.”

“Oh.” John feels slightly foolish. They stand at the door, ringing the bell marked L. Wahlen and then the other bell to see if there’s a neighbor. Sherlock pulls out a credit card and works it into the door crack until he springs the lock.

“She’ll have a deadbolt on the main door, so you’ll need your boots, John,” Sherlock says over his shoulder.

“I’m not going to kick in someone’s door!”

Sherlock jiggles the handle of the door facing them in the tiny foyer. It opens. “Bad sign,” Sherlock mutters and sweeps in, John right behind him. He prays the woman is just sleeping or forgot to lock her door in the morning, but as they shuffle down a short set of narrow steps to the bedroom, he can see that’s not going to be the case. Giant pools of dark red have seeped into the carpet and Lucy Wahlen is lying backward on her low, futon bed, eyes on the ceiling, throat cut. She’s still in her pyjamas.

“Bad luck, very bad luck,” Sherlock says. “He or she is leaving a trail. Must have been a busy night. We have to find the other two, right away.”

“Okay,” John says, taking a very deep breath and forcing himself to look away from the body. “The next girl lives up in Hornsey, not far. Should we call Lestrade?”

“I’ve texted him.” Sherlock pockets his mobile and pulls back the curtains to stare at the tiny garden, slushy with dirty ice and rainwater. His eyes narrow. “It rained earlier while we were inside Emily’s flat.”

“Yes, and now it will snow again, we’ve established... sorry, what are we looking at?”

“The window has been opened and there are very slight footprints on the ground. Supposing the killer left this way, and it was raining at the time, they might have thought they’d leave no footprints. But the carpet near the window is dry, so it wasn’t open before.” Sherlock is running his fingers along the sill. He spins round and puts his fingers into the blood at the foot of the bed, then examines his fingertips. “We’re closer than we thought, John. This didn’t happen overnight, this happened merely a few hours ago, possibly less.”

“None of the girls answered their phones. If we could warn them, we could save them,” John begins backing out of the room.

“Rebecca is closer. We’ll never get a cab on this street, we have to go to the main road.”

Sherlock casts a final glance at the woman’s bedroom, clearly trying to take in as much as he can, then he turns to John. “Run,” he says.

The cabbie is motivated by an extra tenner and they are at the next flat in under 15 minutes, but John is still trying to catch his breath. Sherlock has been throwing words at him to send as texts, some of them make no sense, but John does it anyway. Lestrade is dispatching cars to the address they scrounged up for Alice, and is sending a forensics team to Lucy’s and extra officers to meet them at Rebecca’s flat.

This time John has to kick the door in, and he hopes that no breaking and entering charges apply. He stops cold in the doorway as he sees a body swinging from the light fixture. Sherlock has spied an open window and disappears. John can’t follow. He’s exhausted and slumps to the floor, staring at the woman’s body above him. Some minutes later, Sherlock comes back, sweating and swearing, shedding his coat and scarf. He barely stops before sniffing around the perimeter of the apartment, inspecting everything but John only rises from the floor when he finally hears sirens outside.

Donovan meets him at the door.

“The address you gave us for Alice is fake. No one’s lived there for a fair bit of time.” She nods over John’s shoulder. “The other one?”

“Dead.”

She shoves past him and John wearily turns around and takes up his post, waiting for Sherlock to need him. Sherlock and Donovan have an unusually short sparring session wherein Sherlock reminds her she’s been sent back to her desk _where she belongs_ and she should leave the real detective work to real detectives. Donovan snaps that since Sherlock _hasn’t known any women since he shot out of his mum’s twat_ , he should let her do her job without stopping to puzzle over each and every tampon and hairbrush.

There’s a note, but no one is going to declare it a suicide just yet. More police arrive and John finally nods to Sherlock that he’s taking up space and therefore will be right outside. Sherlock is flushed and has unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt; his eyes meet John’s and stop for a moment. John hopes Sherlock is not going to come down with something. All this running around and refusing to eat until cases are solved, it’s not good. He’ll talk to him about it.

“Quit making eyes at each other and move out of the way,” Donovan snaps, and John ducks his head, but hides his blush by doing as she asks.

~*~

John has a shift at the surgery later in the afternoon and he drags himself there, feeling more like a carcass than a live human being. Sarah quirks an eyebrow at him and he shrugs. He doesn’t need to say _Sherlock_ , it would be redundant.

He’s midway through another unplanned nap when his phone buzzes, jolting him upright in his chair.

 _Dinner and dancing. Tonight. 10pm._  
-SH

 _Is this a date?_  
-JW

 _Not in the middle of a case._  
-SH

 _OK_  
-JW

 _Disappointed?_  
-SH

John doesn’t know how to answer that, so he sets his phone aside. Of course he’s not disappointed, he was just joking. Or, okay, he was flirting, he flirts a little with Sherlock because the man’s married to his work and therefore it doesn’t matter and he enjoys occasionally catching Sherlock off-guard.

His phone goes off.

 _Fine, don’t sulk. Post-case dinner date at that French bistro knock-off you enjoy so much._  
-SH

The problem is, he never knows if Sherlock is kidding, flirting or trying to catch John off-guard too. Not knowing is part of the fun. He had no idea Sherlock knew he was partial to that bistro. He didn’t even know himself until just now. But yes, he likes it. He likes the idea of going there.

On a date.

With Sherlock.

He’s not sure what’s changed in the last 24 hours. He tests himself by thinking of Emily. It’s a bit of a punch to the gut, so he knows he isn’t an unfeeling bastard. Still. He thinks about the way Sherlock has looked at him lately. It happens more often the more time they spend together.

After the poolside explosion, John had woken up in hospital and found Sherlock uncharacteristically sprawled in a chair next to him, mouth open, snoozing away. When he roused, he had jumped up and bent over John with a new look in his eyes. _Aha!_ John had thought, not so heartless after all. It’s hard not to be drawn in when Sherlock looks at him like he’s infinitely glad he’s alive.

“God, I’m an idiot,” he mumbles to himself.

 _???_  
-SH

 _Dinner and dancing. 10pm tonight. Fine.  
Not disappointed.  
Galvin Bistrot post-case._  
-JW

It’s not a yes, not quite an admission to a date, just in case Sherlock is kidding.

After that, his day gets a little better. His patients are good-natured and do as they’re told. He takes a long nap on the sofa after work. When he wakes, he is greeted by the sight of Sherlock in some sort of get-up that makes him look years younger and guarantees they’ll be granted entrance into whatever club Sherlock thinks it’s necessary to crawl through. John is sent back upstairs to at least _try_ not to look like someone’s father.

Thanks to all the running or the surprising lack of biscuits in a flat where one person claims not to eat them, he looks quite nice in his old leather jacket and a pair of new jeans found in the back of his wardrobe.

“Better,” Sherlock smirks when he comes downstairs again. They both pretend that John isn’t blushing just a bit.

“Even when I was younger, this wasn’t my scene,” John says. “If you expect me to do some sort of dancing, you’ll be genuinely disappointed.”

“All that is required is not to be noticed and remarked upon,” Sherlock replies. “They won’t let me in the morgue until 6am, and this will help me formulate some theories to act upon.”

“Scene of the crime, right. Where all these young men and women and met. Presumably.”

“There’s a 70 per cent chance they met at Ignition, arranged to meet there, or were there at the same time.” When John gives him a disbelieving look, Sherlock shrugs. “Mentions on Twitter, tags on Facebook, it’s all quantifiable data. Do keep up.” He clears his throat. “The restaurant across the street is Italian. Hungry?”

“Starving,” John says. He’s in luck because the place is exceptionally good and he has time for both starter and main course before Sherlock deems it time to go. He marvels at how quickly the waitress shuffles another couple out of the window table and into the back the minute Sherlock smiles at her and nods his head. She brings them menus and free wine and does the regular routine of “any friend of Sherlock’s...”

They don’t even pay the bill, but end up dashing out and across the street as if there had been a kitchen fire. John is still holding the napkin and wiping his face with it.

“Albert,” Sherlock says to a large man who is just coming out a side exit of the club.

“Sherlock, good man, I’m just coming on shift. Get in there, if you want, and hurry it up.”

Sherlock grabs John’s wrist and hauls him through the staff entrance, nodding at Albert. The huge line of youths dressed to the nines barely has time to notice them sneaking in the back way and Albert blocks a couple of young men who try to peer in after. They travel down a long dark corridor lined with boxes. A door is ajar revealing go-go dancers with their legs up and piles of coats. They manage to shed theirs as well and stuff them under the pile. Sherlock gives a fake greeting to the girls and coos, “friends of Albert’s; how’s it going?” Then he turns around before they can answer and John gives an awkward wave before Sherlock is pulling him down the corridor again. He can barely see anything.

They open a door and are suddenly inside Ignition. The music is deafening. John’s face feels tight as he grimaces and he shuts his eyes briefly against the flashing lights and colors. “Oh no,” he grouses.

“What?” Sherlock yells at him. John can only shake his head at him. “Don’t get lost,” Sherlock yells. John wonders how that’s going to be possible as the crowd is so thick, and Sherlock moves through the pulsing bodies effortlessly. He considers grabbing onto Sherlock’s belt and then grimaces again, opting for pinching his shirt sleeve and mowing down anyone who tries to part them.

Sherlock turns and catches a glimpse of John’s face. It must look terrified because the next thing he knows, Sherlock is pushing a glass into his hands. It’s an awful shade of pink and there is no chance on earth that John will actually drink it.

“Go on,” Sherlock says, leaning in close so John can hear him. “Down in one, let’s go. You’re too obviously tense.”

“What _is_ this?” John protests.

“How am I supposed to know?” Sherlock says, shrugging. “Okay, fine.” He swoops back by the bar and swipes another drink, this one in a martini glass and a shocking shade of green. “Cheers.” He eyes John warily as he brings the glass to his mouth. John shrugs. How much damage can one girly drink do? They both empty the glasses and make the appropriate faces.

“Pretty disgusting,” John says. “But I suppose,” he leans up to speak in Sherlock’s ear or he won’t be heard, “there’s nothing for it. I’ll need more, and I suspect you will too.”

Sherlock grins - actually grins - and this time he swaggers up to the bar and flashes a 20-pound note. He comes back in record time. The stares of the other patrons queuing for drinks are full of nothing but hatred and John rolls his eyes. Sherlock hands him an orange drink. “What is wrong with beer?” John shouts.

The drink tastes like sherbet. Sweet, but tart. John’s is finished before he can really think about what’s in it. A song he’s heard before comes on, vibrating through his bones, making him tap his foot. The song sounds better like this, not tinny and merely functional like it does on the radio in their flat. Sherlock smiles widely and presses _another_ drink in John’s hand. “Stop it,” John says.

At one point Sherlock goes off to put some questions to his friend, the amiable bouncer, and one of the managers. Armed with his mobile he thinks showing them pictures of all the victims plus Alice might jog one or two memories. He’s propped John up near a counter along the wall and John tries to remember which drink is his. Eventually Sherlock comes back shaking his head. He leans in toward John.

“They claim they’ve never seen them. But three of the four managers I talked to reacted as if they’d been expecting to be asked. All of them glanced up there -” Sherlock points to a staircase leading to a curtained door with a rope in front of it “- something I’m assuming is a VIP room, and probably a place our victims went. Come on.” Sherlock jostles John, who abandons what may or may not have been his drink and then they’re plowing through the crowd again, Sherlock effortlessly and John less so.

The second time John stumbles Sherlock grabs his hand and laces their fingers together. John tugs back, but in all honesty, it’s easier this way. Sherlock moves him through the increasingly frenetic revelers, Up the stairs, their progress is blocked by a large, intractable bouncer who is immune to Sherlock’s charms.

“....personal friends with Inspector Lestrade, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to receive this photo, in fact he could be here within the hour,” John hears the end of whatever Sherlock is saying. John stands dumbly behind him, having no idea what is going on, and not really caring. Champagne sounds good, actually, and that’s what his brain is currently translating “VIP Room” into.

Whatever Sherlock has done, it works, and he moves into the labyrinth of rooms and sinks into an opulent purple banquette. John settles in next to him. “What’re we doing here?” John asks, needing to be reminded.

“Champagne,” Sherlock says, not to him but to a pretty, pert cocktail waitress. “Catching a murderer, need I remind you?”

Sherlock affects a happy, relaxed young man waiting for his drink. “Christ, John, you’re bad at this. Pretend you belong here. Pretend you can do whatever you want.”

John stares hungrily at Sherlock’s lips before shaking his head. _He didn’t mean that._ John’s never been the sort to belong in a place like this, or to pretend he can do whatever he wants. He’s strictly pubs and girls who gently flirt back. Yet, what he wants to do is something that will make him stand out even more.

He wants to skip the models and the champagne and snog his flatmate who is sprawled elegantly under his nose, top buttons undone and trousers just a little too snug. It’s dark and loud and John has lost all control of his ability to be rational.

“John,” Sherlock says. His voice is low, and the music swallows it, but it vibrates through John all the same. There’s a look on Sherlock’s face that seems to give just as much away.

They move at the same time, coming together in a fierce kiss, an almost painful, bruising connection. John feels an explosion of lust along every nerve ending and realizes, somehow, that it’s the same for Sherlock. They’ve gone straight into it, snogging like a couple of teenagers, John biting Sherlock’s lower lip and Sherlock’s tongue caressing John’s.

John can’t believe it’s happening; he can’t believe it hasn’t happened sooner.

It lasts longer than John expects it to, in fact he can see out of the corner of his eye that people are staring and that their champagne has arrived. They break apart, embarrassed. John reaches to pour their drinks, spilling a fair bit while Sherlock just stares at him with that inscrutable look of his, the one that makes John feel like he’s under one of Sherlock’s microscopes.

They both gulp some champagne and John realizes that _of course_ he’s drunk, and this is completely ridiculous, it has to stop. Sherlock is still looking at him. Sherlock sips at his drink and then licks his lips. He leans forward to kiss John again and John thinks, _okay, not so ridiculous after all._ Before he reaches Sherlock, his attention is split by a flash of red hair and someone familiar at a table metres away from their covert banquette.

“Sherlock,” John presses his hand to Sherlock’s chest.

“I know, John, and before you say anything...”

“No, no, Sherlock turn around very discreetly, don’t stare -- but isn’t that Alice? It’s _Alice_.”

Sherlock switches back into Sherlock-mode within seconds. He cups John’s face in his hands and asks John to give him an assessment of the layout. Soon he’s managed it so John’s back is to the table and Sherlock can eye them over John’s shoulder as he kisses John’s neck. It’s not how John imagined it. Not that he’s a romantic, but he’s not overly fond of being used as a cover story.

“She’s leaving. I’m going to follow her,” Sherlock says. “John!”

“Drunk,” John mumbles, ashamed.

“One thing you must do, John,” Sherlock says loudly, fiercely, into John’s ear. “Get the coats. _My Coat._ Get it. Do not leave without it. Go straight back to the flat. I’ll see you there.”

He’s gone before John even has a chance to roll his eyes.

~*~

Drunk as he is, John is a bit worried and texts Sherlock from the flat several times before he gives in to what feels like alcohol poisoning and lies down.

Many hours later John wakes on the sofa, mouth dry, head pounding, but covered in a blanket, with a piece of paper sticky-taped to his face.

 _Lost Alice in the rain, thank you for your concern.  
Dinner tonight after I solve the case._

“Smug, annoying bastard,” John mutters, and flops back onto the sofa cushion grinning.

~*~

“I am on _fire_!” Sherlock shouts as he mounts the steps two at a time. He imagines Mrs Hudson’s _Oh, Sherlock_ , as he bangs his fist against the walls and rattles the banister. He is about to charge into the flat, ready to upset John’s tea mug and thrill him with his latest deduction. The women’s bodies have yielded their secrets, as he knew they would. Every bruise a clue, every wound a trail. John will be amazed.

He loves having an audience, he’s never _quite_ realized that before he met John. Everything is so much better when it meets with John’s approval. He’s got his coat halfway off already.

“John!”

He slams the door open and his vision coalesces into an unlikely tableau. John, seated and shirtless, his hands tied to the legs of the chair.

“Honey, you’re ho-ome!” Moriarty’s sing song voice fills the flat. “Just in time, dinner’s on! Although I thought you’d be a bit later, I haven’t properly started. Slightly disappointed, me. Still, this is most interesting, wouldn’t you say?” He turns to John with delight.

Moriarty is impeccably dressed, as usual. He has white latex gloves on and is standing near John. An impressive array of torture instruments are laid out on the desk, among them sits Sherlock’s favorite skull, as if Moriarty wants to impress upon Sherlock that he’s taken all of his toys. The curtains are half closed. John is gagged, and a trickle of blood from a blow to the head seems to be the only damage done so far.

Moriarty presses the tip of a rather large knife into John’s neck. Blood begins to drip and John’s face goes white with pain.

“Moriarty,” Sherlock says, when he regains control of his voice. His coat slips to the floor but he makes no move to retrieve it. “How lovely to see you. Now, the niceties are over, please tell me what you want.” Sherlock’s brain continues to travel at lightning speed, cataloguing everything: the suit, another Westwood, he’s sentimental; his reflexes are steady and his stance is athletic; he’s moved the furniture to suit his game, the coffee table is shoved aside and books have been viciously thrown into a corner. Moriarty is too close to John, he could slit his throat and no, Sherlock can’t risk it. Snipers, probably, but the curtains... is it possible Moriarty is facing him alone?

“You ought to know what I want by now, Sherlock,” Moriarty says. “Your heart. Burnt out of you.”

“What’s the gain in that? Why do you care about a heart, of all things?”

Moriarty huffs in frustration. “Have you lost your edge? Very disappointing.” He taps the knife and a drip of John’s blood travels down his arm and lands on the carpet. “Because it’s fun. It’s _so much fun_. It amuses me, it entertains me. And I do not want anyone to stop me. I enjoy being challenged on occasion, even chased, but I do not want to be stopped, nor caught, nor frustrated in my efforts before I am ready to end them.”

“You want to be in control,” Sherlock says, and he feels a sudden rush of empathy in spite of himself. “You have to be in control. I can understand that.”

“Of course you do. But you’ve made a critical error. You’ve shown where you lose control.”

“Oh? I wasn’t aware.”

“You were in my club. I own it, you know. Ordinarily I’d be flattered to host the great Sherlock Holmes and his little pet. Then I had to watch... I watched you... with _him_ ,” Moriarty says, wrinkling his nose.

 _Aha,_ Sherlock thinks. Is he... jealous? How very interesting.

“I watched you paw each other,” Moriarty continues. “I must say, it was very low, Sherlock. Very unlike you. Unlike me.” His last word is a growl and Sherlock instantly recognizes how he will beat this man. He’s been distracted. He’s been distracted by something _personal._ Moriarty saw something he did not like. Something he found distasteful in his opponent. He means to make an example of John, and hasn’t he always? Even at the swimming pool, when John was new in his life (something _new_ , something _not boring_ , a _friend_ ) Moriarty settled on John. Settled on him as the one way he could get to Sherlock. Clever.

Seeing Sherlock with John, like _that_ brought something unusual to the fore. Moriarty realizes now, surely he must, that Sherlock isn’t his equal. Moriarty wants not to be alone in the world, he needs Sherlock to be Sherlock. A kiss? Unacceptable. That Sherlock could have an actual working heart to burn? That isn’t the endgame Moriarty wants. He wants Sherlock as stone cold as ever, as brilliant as the sun, a suitable challenge. Moriarty wants Sherlock to deserve him.

Sherlock shivers slightly, imagining Moriarty’s eyes on them all night, cataloguing every move with secret cameras.

“I’ve let you down,” Sherlock says. “I’ve disappointed you.”

“Good, goooood,” Moriarty croons. “Excellent deduction.”

“I could just as easily kiss you, Jim, if you’d drop the knife and come here,” Sherlock says, letting his voice go deep.

Moriarty’s face is rigid with distaste, his neck tenses and his head rolls from side to side. “Distracting me from the task at hand, Sherlock, tsk, tsk. Do you know what I am going to do to your precious John Watson?”

“I can only imagine.” Sherlock’s brain unhelpfully supplies all the textbook information he has ingested over the years to piece together a mosaic of the ways John can be slowly and painfully killed. Something coils in his stomach and his bowels clench. He lets none of that show on his face.

“You know what these are,” Moriarty points to his tray of instruments as if he’s a torture implement salesman. “Scalpels, knives, bamboo sticks, ah, matches! Something fancy here, a Pear of Anguish. Poetic. Pear. Of Anguish.” Moriarty draws out the syllables as if he’s a trained opera singer preparing for La Traviata. “Lovely, isn’t it? I paid a pretty price for this one. Ah! Syringes with my favorite liquids inside! Brass knuckles, a brand, something to remove the eyes, something to break the fingers...” He takes the item and closes it around two of John’s fingers with a sickening crunch. John yells with surprise and then whimpers with pain as he studies his disfigured fingers. Sherlock can feel himself twitch minutely.

“Oh, was I meant to leave the fingers? Our Dr. Watson is after all, a doctor.” Moriarty keeps the blade near John’s throat and presses it tight as Sherlock moves forward ever so slightly, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

Patience, he tells himself. There are cracks here, and he will slip into them. Moriarty will be dead before John, that is certain. But how much will John have to endure before it ends?

Moriarty picks up the skull and giggles. “You do have strange decorating taste,” he says, and flings it over his shoulder. It lands on the sofa and bounces. Moriarty is clearly trying to goad him to distraction. Sherlock will not let that happen.

Sherlock’s eyes flicker to the walls, windows and then the chair where John is seated. John is tied with expert knots and it will take a fair bit of cutting to free him. A rope around his chest ensures he can’t move his torso and already a red welt is forming beneath it.

Several of the crime scene photos have been defaced. The pictures of the dead girls have large red x’s on them and several other pictures have smiley faces.

“You killed them,” Sherlock says.

“Tsk, tsk, I never get my hands dirty, you know that.”

“You preyed on them, the girls. I can see that now. I never suspected you were pulling their strings.” Sherlock admits this with difficulty. He _has_ been surprised.

“It was easy,” Moriarty says. “Women are easy to enrage, only they’re less inclined to violence. But they love to be empowered. They just need someone to _listen_ to them. The payoff, for them, oh it was undeniable. They’d given themselves up to pay off some bills, poor dears, and a woman’s self-loathing is a powerful tool.”

“They killed the men, but then why kill them - ah - because Emily turned up on my doorstep.”

“You’re slow tonight, my dear! Too close to the action, our Emily. Didn’t realize at first that she was a former policewoman and had _principles_. She slept with a few men for drugs but drew the line at murder. Missed all the fun.” Moriarty wrinkles his nose. “Luckily I have housekeepers to take care of messes.”

After this explanation, the sight of the dead girls’ photos marked by Moriarty gives Sherlock something new to think about. He had uncovered their secrets in the morgue - they weren’t high society at all, but lesser creatures putting on a show. Lestrade had dug up evidence of large debts, strange transactions, addictions in various forms. What Moriarty’s done to the photos however, makes Sherlock’s skin crawl. It’s base and disgusting, and he knows Moriarty thinks it’s hilarious.

He realizes he has very nearly lost any respect he had for Moriarty. He almost smiles.

“Recruiting escorts to do your dirty work from your gaudy club, Moriarty? How seemingly beneath you. Rather tasteless.” The longer they converse, the longer John has to recover.

“I dabble in most everything, Sherlock, you’d be surprised. Finding young women who need money, who _want_ money for an expensive lipstick... that’s child’s play. Finding their weak spots, how bitter they are when you really get down to it and twisting that to bring about blood? Now that’s digging deep. Where the real _work_ begins. And I’m very good at my job.”

“You have quite an empire, yes I am aware. But you choose to deal with me personally. Should I be flattered?”

“You already are,” Moriarty says, his grip on the knife tightens and he blinks his eyes in a parody of flirtation.

“Well, let’s be perfectly honest. I _was_ impressed. At first. But this is our second meeting, and things are starting to get a bit dull.”

Moriarty doesn’t respond, just drags the knife across John’s throat lightly. It’s enough to draw a fresh line of blood and some noise from John. “I’m finding things dull as well, Sherlock,” he taunts. “Ah, ah, don’t move. Don’t take a step, or this goes right in. Not to mention what I’ll do with...” he reaches with his free hand into his jacket and brings out a gun. “Ambidextrous, you know.”

Sherlock stops himself from replying. He focuses himself completely on Moriarty. He calculates the distance between them, between Moriarty and John, sees the numbers flash in his mind’s eye, sees the shapes form patterns in the air, traces marks that track a sniper’s potential targets, how the curtain at the window flutters slightly as distraction.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed my knife,” Moriarty croons. “It’s a skinning knife. Do you know what it takes to skin a man alive, Sherlock?”

The knife is a Boker, 30 centimetres long, the gun, a Sig Sauer with a suppressor, and Moriarty holds the latter too loosely, but Sherlock knows his reflexes are likely to be very good if not impeccable. John can provide no distraction, cannot help him at all, so he does what he has not been able to do for some time -- he puts John completely out of his mind.

“Dexterity and skill,” Moriarty continues. He loves the sound of his own voice, clearly. He sets the knife against John’s shoulder (the good one) and begins to cut. He is good, quite dexterous. His grip on the gun never flags and he curves the knife forward, splitting open John’s shoulder. John howls behind his gag.

“The screams, oh Sherlock, even the toughest and most stoic eventually give in to screams as their skin is peeled away like a peach.” He works the knife under John’s skin. “The best is the face, I try to do that early on, while they’re still conscious. Delightful. The way the eyes stare, the lipless mouth, the teeth grinning in a red skull. Our friend John will need smelling salts to stay awake for it. We’ll keep him gagged though. Wouldn’t want to wake the neighbors. Wouldn’t want them spoiling anything. This is art! I don’t suppose you’ve ever tried it?”

A clock begins a countdown in Sherlock’s head. He knows the precise moment he will spring and his instincts will take over after that. The only way to save John is to forget about saving him.

 _Now._

Sherlock vaults forward just as Moriarty turns his head a fraction to the right to look down at where he’s beginning to peel away the skin of John’s arm. Sherlock is on him in a second and knocks the knife straight out of his hand. They struggle with the gun briefly. Sherlock thinks it might be over too soon if Moriarty manages to shoot him in the gut, but Sherlock bears down on his wrist, head butts him and the gun drops. He kicks it under the sofa.

His skull, _his skull_ is lying abandoned on the sofa and Sherlock picks it up as if in a dream, whirls to face Moriarty, who is grinning, happy to be so engaged, and brings the skull down on Moriarty’s own. Moriarty grips his wrists and they stumble backward together, bumping into John’s chair, veering toward the kitchen then away and Sherlock disentangles himself and lands another blow behind the ear. Moriarty sprawls forward. He scrambles toward John and his torture instruments but Sherlock is above him now, he backhands the tray off the table and brings the skull down again. Then again. The sound of bone on bone should be unnerving, moreso the sound of skin and brain matter spattering, but Sherlock feels outside himself, acting without conscious thought, even though he knows it’s _his_ arm that comes down and goes back up and it’s his own, dear skull that he’s using as a weapon to bludgeon a man to death.

The nose is gone, teeth shattered, an eye bulges from its socket, but the image of Moriarty’s grin lingers in Sherlock’s mind until he hears John hoarsely speaking his name and realizes he’s slamming the skull into a bloody mess and that Moriarty is dead.

Sherlock lets the skull roll under the sofa and kicks the body that was once his enemy. He finds the scalpel among Moriarty’s little treasures and works to cut John free. When he finishes, he realizes he’s been chanting John’s name over and over and he’s still clinging to him. John looks wrecked, he’s gasping, he tests his fingers and feet, now free from knots that were tied without concern for his blood flow.

Sherlock is checking everywhere for more damage, and John is now doing the same to him, finishing by cupping Sherlock’s face and saying _it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m okay._ Sherlock takes him in his arms and holds on, too tightly of course, the man is wounded, but he doesn’t feel in control just yet. He realizes that he’s also aroused. He has been for a while, and what does that say about him? He won’t think about it. John smells like sweat and blood and fear.

It’s too late. Sherlock can’t help it. He leans in and kisses him and John kisses him back. On pure adrenalin, Sherlock stands, then lifts John up and pushes him back against the table. He folds like an unmanned puppet and that drives Sherlock into a frenzy. That Moriarty would try to break _this_ man, the one that he... _his_.

He ought to comfort John, get him to a hospital but he’s too angry and too triumphant. His head is too full of John, the smell of him, his beautiful face, his blood. John is lying back and there’s no protest when Sherlock reaches for the button on his jeans. There’s no sound from John when Sherlock yanks his jeans and pants down and touches him everywhere he can reach. John hardens in his hand and looks at the ceiling. Sherlock can’t tell if he’s angry or embarrassed. His blood is smearing over the table, over a bill from a Barclaycard, a DNA test from a past case, an article Sherlock was reading about bees. Mundane bits of their mundane life. He’s turning their life into detritus and he can’t seem to care. He yanks open his shirt and works open his own trousers and presses himself down against John.

Thinking of a skull against a skull and a skinless man, Sherlock ruts against John for long, sweaty, terrible minutes until he comes, spattering John’s chest. There’s less friction now between them and a short time later, John pushes up into Sherlock’s groin and groans loudly.

~*~

Sherlock would deny it publicly, but he has Mycroft on speed dial. Before he fastens his trousers, he scrambles for the phone, still safe in his coat pocket, where he’d shrugged out of it at the door. When he hears his brother’s nasal, knowing voice, he cringes.

“Something’s amiss at Baker Street, Sherlock. Do you require my assistance?”

“Mycroft.” He will deny this as well, that saying his brother’s name, having access to the kind of assistance Mycroft can provide, makes him feel, well, not _emotional_ , perhaps, but relieved. It runs through his veins, replacing the adrenalin that was fueling him and he slumps down on top of his coat. “Yes. Yes, I require your assistance. Moriarty’s here.”

“He’s there? In your flat?” Mycroft rarely shows surprise and it sounds like distaste. “Are you in immediate danger?”

“No,” Sherlock says flatly. “He’s dead.”

“Good, good, that’s good isn’t it? Someone will be there in two minutes.” Mycroft hangs up the phone and Sherlock stares at it.

He’s forgotten, momentarily, about John, still lying on their shared worktable, nearly nude, bleeding profusely. “John, sorry, sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Let me guess,” John says, sitting up. “Two minutes before Mycroft’s minions descend. “Probably less.”

“Exactly. Would you prefer to greet them like this, or can I get you something?”

“Just. If you could. Pull my jeans up and give me a little modesty, that’s fine.” John looks pale and the papers beneath him, case files, crude equations from Sherlock’s head, pages of books, everything, is covered in blood, the pages at the edge of the spreading pool already turning brown. There’s blood everywhere. Bits of brain are seeping into their carpet. Their sofa, their bloody, beloved sofa, is spattered and draped in torture instruments like tinsel on a Christmas tree.

Sherlock fixes John’s jeans, wipes him off, then checks himself, too, and pulls his tattered shirt around him. Hopeless, all of it. “Water, you need...”

Just then the door is kicked in and several men in full tactical gear enter, followed by two in suits. Mycroft’s soldiers take up positions and wait for orders. The men in suits stride forward to Sherlock. “Good evening, sir, if you’d care to brief us on the situation, we will act immediately on your behalf and that of your brother’s.”

Sherlock waves at John. “John first. He’s injured. Blow to the head, serious wounds on his arm, broken fingers. I don’t think I need to even suggest that he not go to regular hospital.” The suit shakes his head. He cocks his head at Moriarty’s body. “Yes, the body. I’m not sure how many men he has stationed outside, but you’ll want to sweep the street and keep the curtains shut. He likes bombs. And... disposal. There will need to be... disposal. I... rely on my brother for his expertise on... that.”

Sherlock is slowly losing his composure. He can’t stop staring at what was once Moriarty, the opened skull, the bloody mess, the unhinged jaw -- he can almost imagine that the jaw is moving, moving to mock him, to laugh. He imagines the laugh. High-pitched, raw, gurgling with blood. Moriarty’s small pale hands are motionless on the carpet, untouched. He hadn’t had a chance to lift them in defense. Had he wanted to? Or had he wanted Sherlock to finish it at last?

The suit has taken Sherlock’s elbow and directed him to a chair. “Please, sir, sit here until we’ve completed our search. Mycroft is expected in five minutes, 30 seconds. He apologizes but there is traffic. Unavoidable, you see.”

Sherlock sits, miraculously. He never does as he’s told. He wants to go back to John’s side, but it feels like John is a crime scene himself, one Sherlock is not invited to. All the wounds Sherlock couldn’t prevent, and the sticky semen covering his stomach, the ultimate perversion. Did John even want that? John was surely in shock, would he have pushed Sherlock away if he’d had his wits about him?

Probably. Sherlock hangs his head. He doesn’t _do_ shame. It wastes time. Guilt, too. He’s taken a life before, and Moriarty gave him no choice. It would have been so much cleaner if he’d used the gun. Even one of the knives. But what does he care? Bashing the little fucker’s brains in was savage and perfect. Exciting. He won’t play it over in his head, not when the body is lying there, covered in a sheet; he’ll wait until later to replay the scene, to revel in the strength he felt flowing through his arms - one to hold Moriarty down, one to bring blunt force down on his face.

Sherlock shudders and a rhythmic tremor takes over. He hears a voice as if through metres of water. Mycroft.

“Sherlock, dear boy.” Mycroft is wearing a suit, but no tie, the only concession to it being the middle of the night. “You look an absolute wreck. I am relieved you prevailed, and can assure you I would have been here sooner except for Moriarty’s rather clever little surveillance evasions, although we did see that there was trouble. I lost several men in skirmishes with his snipers and his guard dogs, but we didn’t realize...”

“That Moriarty himself would be right inside,” Sherlock answers shakily.

“Unforeseen,” Mycroft adds.

Sherlock moves to rise from his position and his legs buckle. Mycroft grabs him and Sherlock’s instinct to pull away is muted by the strength with which his brother grips his shirt. He pulls Sherlock into an uncharacteristic embrace that brooks no argument. “Thank you,” Sherlock manages stiffly, against his brother’s shoulder. The sounds of Mycroft’s trauma team tending to John bring him back to himself. “John...”

“Our Dr. Watson is a tough character, as well you know. Let my team stabilize him. We’ll move him shortly.” Sherlock can see the “team,” a professional looking female doctor and two nurses; watches them load John onto a trolley, bandaged and braced. John’s eyes are closed so Sherlock can’t give him the look he wants to - whatever it might mean.

Mycroft holds him in place so he can’t follow the procession - out the door, down the steps, into a waiting, unmarked ambulance. He feels dizzy and realizes he hasn’t eaten in days. He found something at the morgue, some clue, what was it? He can’t remember. He shakes his head. Odd. Something relevant to the case, something strange. It’s completely left him.

Mycroft pushes him gently into a chair and then - Mycroft himself - goes to fetch a bag of clothes and toiletries for Sherlock. Sherlock wonders if he’ll do the same for John. He doesn’t. It’s okay, Sherlock can take care of John, he really can. When Mycroft hands him a clean shirt and trousers, Sherlock looks at him, questioningly.

“You can’t very well walk out of here like that,” Mycroft says. When Sherlock doesn’t answer or make any kind of move, he sighs and, tossing the clothes over his shoulder, reaches for Sherlock’s shirt. Once that’s peeled away he starts on the rest, and part of Sherlock’s mind is aware that his brother is doing something strange, something tender. It’s an intimacy of the kind Sherlock has never allowed. He used to scream as a child whenever someone other than his mother touched him. Mycroft’s hands are close enough to businesslike as he tugs the trousers down over Sherlock’s hips. A tap on his calf and Sherlock steps into the clean pair, feels them slide up his legs, answers to another tap on his wrist to slide his hand into the shirt cuff.

The bloody clothes are tossed into a heap near Moriarty. Everything will be burned, most likely, in some basement boiler room owned by Mycroft or the government. DNA will be preserved, along with some photos, in case there is ever a need to prove that he really is dead, or to enhance a falsehood that he is not. Sherlock is beyond caring.

He stumbles down the stairs and into the empty street. Mycroft’s annoying assistant is standing near the car. He stares at her and she stares back. For the first time he wonders who she is. What does she feel? Does she go home and throw knives at a picture of Mycroft’s face? He’s never thought of her before, he’s never needed to. He’s never felt anything like gratitude for his meddling older brother and his collection of worker bees.

“I’m not grateful,” he mumbles as he stumbles into the back of the BMW. She says nothing, remains inscrutable, seated in the front seat as Mycroft’s driver takes them toward what he can only assume is Mycroft’s flat. “Take me to John,” he instructs, throat closing down on the words.

“Of course,” Mycroft says, a heavy hand resting on Sherlock’s forearm. “Of course.”

Sherlock closes his eyes and falls into unconsciousness.

~*~

"I'll get you a taxi," Lestrade says.

"I'll get my own," Sherlock replies. He is standing in front of Scotland Yard while Lestrade holds an umbrella over his head. Lestrade knows something has happened. He knows John has been injured in an attack. Sherlock will not give him the details, insists it has nothing to do with the police. Lestrade believes this like he believes in faeries.

The entire day has been wasted looking at leads dug up by Donovan as to the whereabouts of Alice. Alice Fell, if that is even her real name, which Sherlock doubts. Doubt is the only thing he can come up with, in fact. It's strange, but he finds he is unable to focus, he is unable to see any connections, and he cannot hold onto information for more than a few minutes.

"Deleted it, did you?" Donovan says coldly as Sherlock asks her once more to tell him the circumstances surrounding their inquiry into the club Ignition, which seems to have always been owned by a rich Saudi and has no surveillance cameras in their VIP room.

Lestrade continues to stand with him, holding the umbrella over him, increasing his discomfort at being coddled. An unmarked police car drives up and Sherlock has no choice but to climb inside. He gives the off-duty cop an address that is not Baker Street. He tells himself it's just an experiment. If, after a few hits of cocaine, his brain is still frozen like a morgue corpse, then he'll know.

He'll know he's lost the only thing that makes him matter.

~*~

John finds himself back at 221B Baker Street within the week. It’s not that he wasn’t comfortable in the secret, MI-5 recovery hospital. He was just bored. Naturally no visitors were allowed and the private room meant no company. Sherlock was conspicuous in his absence, only checking on him twice.

He’s pulled up a chair close to the the window and covered himself with a blanket, watching people struggle down Baker Street in the wind. The telly hurts his head, and he’s not going to be able to work for a while. Mycroft shut down his blog as a precaution, and every move he makes is monitored. Sherlock has been in and out of the flat, chasing leads that have turned into dead end in the wake of Moriarty’s untimely demise. It is as if everyone had shut up shop the minute word got out. And how, in fact, had word gotten out? Mycroft’s men had killed and maimed a fair number of his men, but there were probably tactical teams awaiting word back at Moriarty’s home base, or mother ship, or underground lair, whatever he had, and when no word arrived, they’d figured the worst and done what was protocol. Perhaps a new evil overlord is already set to take his place.

Maybe they’d offer the post to Sherlock. John contemplates a life of crime with Sherlock for a few minutes and then stops when it starts to look like too much fun.

He thinks about his injuries and the time it will take to fully recover, starting with his head injury. Moriarty had knocked him out cold when he arrived home, and when he came to he was trussed up like a Christmas turkey.

His concussion has left no lasting damage. The rope burns are neatly fading. Two broken fingers are bundled in a single splint, making it very hard to type and impossible to wave without looking a right git.

And finally, his cuts. The one on his throat is healing. It was a clean cut and not too deep. His arm is another story. Digging the knife point into his bicep has caused damage, and the cut that circles the top of his shoulder where Moriarty began to _skin him_ \-- John shudders -- that part is sore and has layers of stitches. John can’t even look at it yet.

He can’t perform any basic medical procedures requiring the use of his hands for a few weeks at least. He can still hear Sarah’s voice on the phone, understanding, worried, but also incredibly irritated. _I have a surgery to run, John, I need to be able to rely on you when we need you. I understand you were captured again and wounded and really, it sounds quite terrible. Really. But you’ll be unavailable for two weeks and when you come back you’ll be less useful than you were before, which wasn’t very to begin with._

She was nicer when she was still interested in going out with John. He didn’t tell her the whole story though, so he can’t really blame her for being brusque.

John sighs. He’ll probably get the sack and the thought makes him cringe. They need the money and he needs time out of the apartment so Sherlock doesn’t drive him mad. In fact, right about now he should be longing for some time away from his flatmate. Instead, he longs for the sound of Sherlock’s step on the stair, and yet the flat is empty for hours at a time, John straining at every sound, jumping at the slightest gust of wind against the window pane.

There are times he thinks he could be a character in a psychological thriller and that Sherlock Holmes is a figment of his imagination.

John closes his eyes and his head rests uncomfortably against the window pane. He dozes and only the minute vibrations of the glass wake him when Sherlock shuts the door of the flat.

John clears his throat and turns, a forced smile on his face. He immediately frowns when he sees the defeated slump of Sherlock’s shoulders and the ashen pallor of his face. “Sherlock?”

“John.” Sherlock moves to stand near John. The light from the window hits his face and John swears he has never seen anyone seem so melancholy. “I’m sorry I haven’t been home a great deal.”

“You, apologizing? Is it the apocalypse?” John tries for a smile, but there’s too much tension between them.

“Probably,” Sherlock replies. He reaches out and drums his fingers against the window. “The criminal class will soon be getting a leg-up. I’m finished.”

John huffs an abbreviated laugh. “What? Right. Pull the other one. Oh, and don’t give up your day job.”

Sherlock’s fingers brush John’s injured shoulder and he turns away. “Tea?”

“You’re making it? Will wonders never cease?"

“Yes, John. I am capable of being considerate when occasion calls for it. Your current state requires that you rest, therefore I make tea. Will make tea. Am starting now to make tea. And feed you. What will I feed you, what sort of things can one do with the various ephemera in the cupboard?”

“Take a breath, Sherlock,” John says. “Make the tea, hand me the phone and then stay put long enough for the takeaway to arrive. That would be great. I’m not feeling my best today as it happens.”

Sherlock darts back over to John, peering into his face, checking his temperature. “Fatigue? Pain? Any other symptoms?”

“I’m fine, Sherlock, you can let go of my wrist. I’m just tired. Worried.”

“Worried?” Sherlock muses.

“Yes. Worried about you. About the flat. About the police turning up on our doorstep one day and not for your help. The nightmares I haven’t yet had. My injuries. Moriarty’s empire. The murders. Alice. Where _is_ Alice?”

Sherlock disappears into the kitchen and bangs the kettle and mugs around. John hears the sound of running water and leans his head back against the chair. Baker Street is as normal as it can be, very little traffic, a few well-dressed pedestrians going about their business. It all feels so far away, completely out of reach.

When Sherlock returns with the tea, he pulls over the other desk chair and sits near John. “We should talk,” he says tentatively.

“Okay,” John answers slowly. “What would you like to talk about?”

Sherlock’s eyes dart to the window and he shifts minutely in his seat. _Uh oh_ John thinks. Something big. Something Sherlock is uncomfortable with. The kissing? The strange sex after killing Moriarty? Or quite possibly nothing related to John at all?

“There are things I want to tell you, but I’m not sure I can. Or that I should,” Sherlock says.

John knows this kind of declaration. Sherlock will tell him something that will change their relationship irrevocably. He’s both frightened and eager. He can’t let Sherlock down, but he’s paralyzed with anxiety. “Tell me,” he finally manages.

“It happened earlier this week at Scotland Yard, chasing leads on Alice. Then today, I was at a crime scene,” Sherlock says. “I was ineffectual. Don’t say it’s a joke, it isn’t. The things I see, usually, patterns, links, trajectories, all gone. I could see nothing. Worse, I could _observe_ nothing. It was all just noise. Lestrade sent me home and he and Donovan took over.”

“Sherlock it’s probably just a one-off thing, I’m sure of it. People don’t just suddenly lose their intelligence.”

“Don’t they? I think people - other people - suffer from diminished confidence, suddenly lose the ability to see, fail to keep up their rate of success long-term.”

“Like you said, other people.”

“But I am human, let’s face facts.”

“Not like other humans.” John makes a wry face remembering all the times Sherlock was able to turn off emotion completely and to function more efficiently, rather than emotionally.

“Do you loathe me, John? For what I did that night?” Sherlock looks sharply at John and then away. He focuses intently on the postbox across the street. He asks it as if he honestly does not know the answer.

“No. No,” John answers as fervently as he can. “Sherlock, everything that happened, happened. No one - that is _I_ wasn’t forced or unwilling. Not for the kissing, not for after Moriarty. Do you understand?”

Sherlock shakes his head.

“No? You don’t understand or you can’t?”

Sherlock’s stare returns to John and he feels pierced through. Sherlock’s eyes are sea green and his pupils are mere pinpoints in the light. He looks old, a man burdened with too many things he can’t share with others. His hair frames his face and he looks helpless, John thinks, and more beautiful than anything he’s ever known.

“Nothing with you is normal or easy, Sherlock.” John looks away, rearranges the blanket on his lap. “Whatever I say to the contrary, it's not what I want. No more normal. No more easy. Just you.” His blood is pounding in his ears, but there, he's said it, he can't unsay it.

“I have never faced any kind of loss like this,” Sherlock says. “To lose everything I took for granted is now an unacceptable outcome. My deductive skills, for one. My freedom to do as I like. And you.”

“I don’t think you’ve lost any of that,” John says.

“I can’t think, can’t put two and two together. My brother now holds the covered-up evidence of a brutal murder. And then there’s you.”

“Stop. Just - stop. You have me, I’m not going anywhere. This is my home, I’m staying,” John crosses his arms as if to indicate just how stubborn he is. “As lovers, as friends, as flatmates, as colleagues; it’s okay, all of it. It’s all fine, just like I told you. You’ve probably never experienced PTSD but let me tell you, you lose something of yourself. You’re in an extended period of shock. What you need to do is lay off the cases and rest and everything will come back to you. Moriarty’s death is a clear-cut case of self-defense, not that it will ever come to light. As for your brother, you’re being ridiculous. Mycroft wants nothing more than to be part of your life, to protect you. And yes, we all know you don’t need protecting, but when you do, you do. It’s time for you two to bury the hatchet.”

“Have I ever told you how wise you are, John?” Sherlock finally - finally - looks relieved. His face clears, softens at the edges and John wants to wrap him in his arms and hold him.

“I think the word you used was idiot.”

“Don’t worry, everyone is compared to me. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t also wise. In your own way.”

“I think you should get some sleep, Sherlock. Honestly, you look like you haven’t slept or eaten in days-"

“I started using, John,” Sherlock blurts out before John has even finished his sentence.

Ah, this was what Sherlock wasn’t sure he could tell John. John inwardly cringes and tries very hard not to let the disappointment show on his face.

“Can you stop?” John asks.

“I think so. I have before.”

“What can I do?” It’s simple, really. John said it was all fine and of course that’s not fine, but Sherlock obviously needs his help. He’s not going to abandon him.

“I need you. I need you to... help me. I don’t know what else to do.” Sherlock closes his eyes. John puts his hand to the back of Sherlock’s head and pulls him down onto his shoulder.

~*~

Sherlock’s sprawled across John’s bed, his head in John’s lap. Every limb is as heavy as stone; he feels as if he’s sinking down into the bed. He longs for a hit so he won’t have to face the deep and the dreams. John’s warm thigh is comforting though, as is the soft cotton of John’s worn sheets. His body however, refuses to give over completely and it feels heavy but resolute, waiting for instructions, or artificial stimulation. His thoughts drift apart, spreading over the surface of his mind, a drop of blood in a slide, viewed under the microscope, a kaleidoscope of colours and textures.

He sleeps for what seems like the first time in weeks.

Hours later, he wakes to find himself in John’s embrace, slow strokes being rubbed across his back, kisses dropped onto his forehead. He’s never known sweetness like this. He’s never wanted it. He shivers once and it’s over. He doesn’t feel the repulsion he’s always felt at another person’s intimate touch. There’s no bitterness on his tongue ready to lash out and destroy it all.

He gives in and it’s much easier than he thought it could ever be. He reaches up and pulls John into a hard, determined kiss. John responds - he knew that he would, but he doubted it all the same - and Sherlock opens his mouth, drawing John in, pulling him down over him on the pillow.

Sherlock strips off. He’s eager to give everything to John, to be as vulnerable as he can. John is doing the same, ripping his t-shirt as he gamely struggles out of it, clearly hampered by his injuries but not allowing Sherlock to help him.

“John,” Sherlock says. “Tell me you want this just as much as I do.”

“Don’t be daft,” John answers, breathless. “I’ve told you. Let me show you.”

“God, please, John, please.” Sherlock strains up against him. He’s hard, and he can’t get enough of John’s mouth. He pulls John’s hand against him, against his cock, his balls, between his legs.

John seems to explode. He pushes Sherlock flat on his back, spreads him out on the bed and shoves his hands above his head. He winces as his arm reminds him of his wound.

“There are so many things I want to do to you, Sherlock,” John says.

“Do them, please John.” Sherlock stretches out and spreads his legs. His body isn’t crying for artificial stimulation anymore.

“I’ve never... that is... with a man,” John stutters. His erection is pressed tightly against Sherlock’s stomach. “I want to.”

“I trust you, John.”

John gets up and struggles with his bedside drawer. “Fuck, what do I have?”

“Anything John, your spit will work, just _please_.”

“Shut up, Sherlock, just for a moment,” John says. He lays heavily across Sherlock and after torturous minutes of rustling and swearing, pulls out a dusty bottle of lubrication and an even older looking condom. Sherlock wants to set them on fire and make John take him as roughly as possible, but he resists, thinking of their first sexual encounter on a table as blood pooled on their rug, and lets John do what he likes. He watches John wrestle the condom on himself, coat his cock with lube and then reach for Sherlock. He moans as John’s hands trace the head of his cock and travel down to his balls, massaging them for a period that excites Sherlock to agony. Finally John’s fingers delve deeper and Sherlock pulls his legs as wide as they will go and swears to himself that he will not beg.

He begs anyway.

John finds his way inside, sets up a rhythm and Sherlock curses out loud. John knows what he is doing, so either he’s lied about his experiences with other men, or he’s done this on himself, and both of those scenarios threaten to send Sherlock over the edge. Finally his begging results in John’s cock, tentatively pressing at his entrance, and Sherlock gives in to all sensation. He can no longer speak, he can hardly breathe.

“I want this, Sherlock,” John gasps, “God, I want you so much. Tell me this doesn’t hurt. Tell me what you want.”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, only writhes under John, helpless and stunned. If he’d known this was how it would be, he’d never have returned to cocaine, he would have kneeled in front of John until John gave in and did whatever he wanted. He’s strung out like a wire, and John will break him. He will break him and the fear - a new and fresh fear - is that it will all be over after this, after a week or a month John will be gone and it will be back to what used to pass as normal. His phone and his telly and his laptop will be all he has to tell him what the world is; that the world exists. He’ll no longer see it through a lover’s eyes, through John’s eyes, or through the eyes he has when he has John.

John stretches above him and devours his mouth and Sherlock is lost and spinning. John takes him and the first push is ruthless, it knocks the breath out of his lungs, makes him feel like he is coming apart. John’s thrusts are wild and uninhibited just like Sherlock wanted, even though his body still resists. Then John bites his lower lip, whether by accident or design and his concentration on what’s going on below is broken. His body seems to open up, adjusting to John, and his hips stutter upward to grab at the rush of pleasure. He exposes his throat for John, who is showing him exactly what’s underneath that stolid, solid, placid exterior.

He needs nothing more to come and so he does, slicking up the airless space between them, letting John’s frenzied rutting move his body in ways it’s never been moved before. John’s teeth clamp down on his shoulder as he comes, but he can still hear the sound of John’s shout as it echoes throughout both of them.

~*~

John looks at himself in the mirror at sometime around eleven the next morning. He can’t believe how well he’s slept and he can’t believe that Sherlock is sleeping still. He needs a shave. His eyes are bright. Other than that, there is no discernible difference in his face where he’d honestly expected one.

He slept with a man. With Sherlock, which is even more life-changing. Not just kissing, groping or rutting against each other, drunk or high on shock and adrenalin. They comforted each other, but it was more than that. A sort of need that John wasn’t aware he could be capable of at his age.

Sherlock’s face appears in the mirror behind him. It’s changed, or John’s perception of him has changed. It’s a worn face, a loved one, still too pale for anyone’s liking, especially his.

“Morning, John.”

“Sherlock. Fancy a cuppa?”

Sherlock smiles. Then it fades. “What temperature does water boil?” He asks. “What part of the world is my favourite tea from? The earth goes ‘round the sun, but yesterday’s crime scene had gunpowder residue I could not decipher. There were blue paint chips under the victim’s fingernails that I not only missed, but that looked green when they were pointed out. Time of death was beyond me. I failed to see the tan lines around the man’s biceps and could not elucidate on the grade of rope used to strangle him.”

John gapes at Sherlock in the mirror. “Sherlock it’s understandable...”

“Is it, John? Is it?”

“The cocaine, is it...”

“It helps me. Usually. It makes it all work faster, sometimes it jumbles it up, which is why I stopped. And Lestrade, of course.”

“Good man,” John mumbles. “This wasn’t a jumble, I take it.”

“No. Not a jumble. An absence. A screaming, aching void where everything was before. _Everything_.”

John turns and takes him in his arms. But he can already feel Sherlock shrinking away.

~*~

Another week trespasses across Sherlock’s consciousness, but it leaves nothing behind except a vast, cold space that he’s not sure even John can warm, though he tries. John’s patient, he’s kind, but Sherlock knows it’s frustrating for him, too, particularly when Sherlock is unable to relax and unable to have sex again.

If there’s any proof that John cares about him, it’s this - watching Sherlock sit still, staring into space, waiting for his genius to return. Waiting for the nightmares to stop. Waiting for the melancholy to lift.

They go to another crime scene at Lestrade’s request. Sherlock is ridiculed by Anderson as he paces the perimeter, pulling at his hair and shouting “none of it connects!” John punches Anderson in the jaw. Lestrade asks them to leave. Donovan grabs John’s jacket and hisses “what is going _on_?” in Sherlock’s earshot and he turns and lunges at her. John has to shove Sherlock and the resulting tussle makes everyone look bad.

“Let me know if I can do anything,” Lestrade says as he ushers the two of them into a taxi. Sherlock shakes his head and meets Donovan’s surprisingly sympathetic eyes as they pull away. Her pity angers him but is oddly not unwelcome. He does feel pitiful. He wants someone to understand even though it’s not possible for them to understand. Mycroft gives him a very wide berth, which shows Sherlock that he, at least, understands that his advice would not be helpful or welcome.

Nothing connects. Everything is fractured. Life is broken up into meaningless bits and haphazard emotion. This must be what regular people feel like. It’s hell.

He and John sleep in the same bed every night, but he can’t abide too much contact, he can’t get an erection, he can’t focus on the relationship he thought he wanted to build. Sometime soon, he is going to have to tell John this and that he doesn’t know if it will change, and he’s dreading it. John thinks it will just take time. Sherlock is no longer sure.

He goes for a walk and finds himself unable to breathe. He looks up and he’s lost. He’s _lost_ , in London, his city, just minutes away from his flat. He ponders what this means and how he will endure it - how long he will endure it before he puts a bullet in his brain.

“Sherlock Holmes.”

His head snaps up and his vision clears. A red-haired woman is standing in front of him on the sidewalk.

“Hello darling,” she says. “I’m Alice.”

~*~

Apparently, it’s Sherlock’s turn to be kidnapped. Alice had moved toward him as if in greeting, as if they were old friends. Close enough to kiss. The pinch on his neck signalled she had injected him with something. His brain refuses to cough up the names of drugs she might have used. When he comes to, he is seated in a chair in front of a large window overlooking the Thames. He’s handcuffed tightly to a rolling desk chair. It’s pissing down rain and the lights of the city glow in a smear of orange and blue across his vision.

“Inspiring isn’t it?” Alice purrs in his ear, standing just behind him. “But that’s not why I brought you here.” She spins him in his chair and now he can see the room behind him. It can only be one thing, Moriarty’s headquarters.

“His lair,” Sherlock says drily.

“Yes, you’re good, everyone says you’re good. Especially Jim. Jim thought you were the best. You were his ultimate prize. It was quite endearing how sweet he was on you. Took my suggestion of killing you off in your own flat, which had the potential to be two birds with one stone, but you were the victor my dear, dear Sherlock.”

The room is a minefield. A manifestation of Moriarty’s ego and obsessions. The room fans out in a semi-circle of sleek desks with a dozen large flat-screen monitors, each one dancing with data. There are maps on one, weather patterns on another, the London tube live feed, a CCTV loop, 10 Downing Street and 221B Baker Street in a four-square split screen on another. Despite all his difficulties lately, Sherlock is envious. He also feels superior, because with all this, Sherlock still outsmarted Moriarty more times than he didn’t.

The desks are covered with mobile phones, cameras, flash drives and external hard-drives. The wall behind the half-moon of desks conceals compartments. One has been slid open to reveal a display of weaponry that would probably excite John. _John._ Sherlock has a momentary flash of pain not unlike a blow to the head. He does not expect to get out of this alive, and therefore, therefore...

“You’re a bit slow tonight, Sherlock,” Alice says, coming in closer to examine his face. “Are you perhaps ill? The drugs should have worn off by now.”

“How is that relevant?”

She pulls on her lower lip with two delicate fingers and frowns. “I had hoped for a bit of foreplay. You make a challenge, I make a clever retort. You try to figure out who I am. I tell you something but not enough. Perhaps I blame my childhood or quote Nietzche. You strain against the cuffs, I watch with delight and perhaps even glee.”

“Sorry _darling_ , you simply can’t share what Jim and I had. It was too special.”

That at least gets a grin from Alice. She’s really quite stunning on the face of it. Not pretty, not beautiful, but _interesting_. She might have made a worthy adversary if Sherlock had been up to the task; had managed to avoid being kidnapped in the middle of London and left with nothing but his dulled wits about him.

“I wondered what Jim saw in you, you know. I know you outsmarted him on many occasions and I must say, I was quite impressed. I said to myself - Alice, you must get rid of this man straightaway! But I wonder now if it’s better to let you slink off down the stairs.” She pulls at her lower lip again and smiles. She’s wearing slim-fitting trousers, boots and a gray tailored jacket. She could be in her thirties or late twenties, an executive or a housewife, Sherlock isn’t sure he’d be able to tell much from his current position, whatever the state of his brain.

“I don’t know that you and I are a match, Sherlock Holmes. Yin and Yang, you and Jim, naturally,” she continues. “However, lately you don’t seem like much of a challenge at all and I think that hurts you. Killing you, that might cause problems for me with your loyal followers. Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade are unlikely to let it go so easily, not to mention your imposing and well-outfitted brother. But... letting you go, watching you continue to fail until you just cannot stand being boring and ordinary? That’s the sort of spectacle someone like me could really appreciate.”

“Tired of making a spectacle of dead men, then?” Sherlock says. He may not currently be possessed of the power of witty rebuttal, but he still maintains the right to be irritated by the criminal ego.

“Emasculating them not enough?” he demands. “Had to go for bigger game? Jim Moriarty’s a big fish, but perhaps you managed it because you seem so ill-equipped to take him on.”

“Ill-equipped to take you on as well,” Alice says. “Yet you proved surprisingly dense when it came to removing the layers of this little intrigue. Shall I tell you more?”

“Please do, it will help me catch you later on.”

She laughs at this, a pretty laugh, but also a real one. “Yes, deduce me, darling, I adore it. Even more amusing is that Jim thought of me as a promising young thing he could bring up in the ranks. He honestly thought he was testing me when he told me about Emily’s little visit to you and gave me strict orders to butcher the girls.”

She’s bragging now, and Sherlock is pleased. She wants to impress him, they all do. That’s what trips them up.

“You didn’t like that. You didn’t want to kill your friends,” Sherlock says, pretending that he doesn’t already know the real truth. She bears another striking similarity to Moriarty with her need to keep bantering with him, buying Sherlock valuable time.

“Of course I wanted to kill them! I love a cutthroat business.”

“You didn’t even need to plan a hostile takeover. I killed him and you stepped right in,” Sherlock says.

“Once I realised his emotional investment, it was really only a matter of time.”

Alice moves to the window as she speaks, her voice low and in its own way, soothing. “Well,” she whispers, leaning over him from behind, a strand of her hair passing in front of Sherlock’s face, “Whatever your fate, we can’t stay here chatting any longer. It’s time to put Jim Moriarty to rest.” She traces his ear delicately with her tongue. He shivers slightly, and then blinks. Out of the corner of his eye he is certain he saw movement. He tries to stay completely still.

Alice moves around him and picks up a remote control from one of the desks. The monitors go dark and then light up again all with Moriarty’s face. He’s talking to the camera, but there is no volume. It looks like he’s giving someone a vehement dressing down, relaying a manifesto possibly. With no sound, it looks silly, just melodramatic faces, each screen showing the same reel slightly off-sync from the rest. It’s disconcerting, like a video installation at the Tate Modern that Sherlock has once again failed to appreciate as high art.

The movement to his left coalesces into a figure.

“I was wondering if you might join us,” Alice says as she slips behind the first screen. Moriarty’s face makes a surprised look into the camera, as if on cue.

“Sherlock, you all right?” John’s voice is husky but steady. Sherlock wants to laugh with surprise and exhaustion, but he might sound mad and make John worry.

“Fine, John. Luckily Alice here was just giving me her penultimate villain’s speech and has had time to reconsider killing me. You might have saved yourself a trip.”

“Boys, boys, this reunion is so lovely,” Alice says, from somewhere behind the third monitor. Moriarty has decided a close-up will work better for whatever message he is delivering and now his faces are hideously large, mouthing soundlessly at them. “But we just don’t have the time. Dr. Watson I was not expecting you. That was silly of me. You’re Sherlock’s shadow, aren’t you? Perhaps we should wait and see if the Brother, the Housekeeper and the Detective Inspector will show.”

“I have put in a few calls,” John says, slowly and carefully. He’s inching toward Sherlock and Alice doesn’t seem to mind, just continues to move behind the monitors. “So I’d advise you to stay where you are, police are surrounding the building.”

One of the screens opposite Alice flashes off Moriarty’s face and shows crystal-clear footage of the street outside, the river beyond, and to the right, an empty alley. “Sorry, that’s just not true,” Alice says. “Disappointing, Dr. Watson! A shame really. I have this same sort of setup in my own location, so I’m only being wasteful when it comes to your lives. Apologies, Sherlock, but I can’t risk loose ends now Dr. Watson is here, there isn't time to see you both scamper away. Though I hate to be as changeable as your dear, departed Jim.”

With that, there is a soft ping, and Sherlock realizes that what he assumed to be another concealed panel is a lift. Alice steps into it and is gone.

John pounces on him, tugging at the handcuffs and cursing. “Lestrade’s on his way, he’ll get her, and then they’ll start on this lot,” he waves his arm around.

“No, John,” Sherlock says softly. “What she said about being wasteful. I would guess this room is set to explode. As soon as she hits the ground floor.”

With a last grin, Moriarty’s visage is gone and the room is dark but for the light coming through the window.

“Sherlock, what do I do?” John looks up at him, still pulling uselessly at the handcuffs as if that is going to help.

“Cabinet. There, do you see? Gun, John.” Sherlock is making the most of head movements and short words. He is suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings and the charge that has been set and is about to go off.

John doesn’t hesitate. He grabs a Walther, and loads it with lightning speed. Sherlock does his best to turn away and splay his handcuffed hands as John takes aim at the centre chain and shoots. Sherlock flinches, but his hands are free and he jumps up - too quickly, he realizes as he stumbles and falls forward. John is there to pull him up and yanks him toward the stairs. He hears the sound of beeping, one that heralds an explosion, one he has not yet put far enough into the past after Moriarty’s first attempt on their lives.

“There isn’t time,” Sherlock gasps. “Shoot the window.”

“What?”

“Shoot. The window. John, trust me, please.” John whips around and fires three bullets into the pane, shattering it with a deafening noise that seems echo around the room. When the wind whistles in and blasts cold air into their faces, they clasp their hands together. “As hard and as fast as you can,” Sherlock says, pulling them as far back as they can go in the semicircle of Moriarty’s hardware. He feels his legs nearly buckling underneath him and he releases John’s hand. “You can get further,” he gasps.

“Shut up, Sherlock,” John growls and grabs his hand again. Then he starts off, pulling Sherlock and they both run, flat out, toward the gaping, empty frame and the black shapes outside. They’ll never make it, but as the timer runs out and lets out a long, low beep, Sherlock knows they’re giving it their best shot.

He’s flying through the air and his world goes white and silent. The only thing he can feel is the pressure of John’s hand around his.

~*~

John thought it would be a quiet night in. That’s usually his first mistake. When he’d seen Sherlock slinking out of the flat he worried he was going to meet his dealer or something equally dangerous. So he followed him. After a half an hour it had occurred to John that perhaps Sherlock was just wandering around aimlessly, with no particular fixed goal in mind, and was that worse or better?

A woman approaches him and gives him a kiss on the cheek. John doesn’t expect Sherlock to slump over and be dragged by two men into a waiting car. No one notices. It’s a smoothly executed kidnapping, but one John is certain wasn’t orchestrated by Mycroft.

For once in his life, John is thankful for London’s snarled traffic. He is miraculously able to follow the car on foot through Soho and when they hit Picadilly Circus, John nicks a taxi out from under the noses of an elderly couple and tells the driver “follow that car!” He feels a bit silly, but there’s really no other way to say it. At the driver’s annoyed look, John pulls out several 20-pound notes and adds, “please.”

John can’t reach Lestrade, so he texts and leaves messages for both him and Donovan. He is told that Mycroft is out of the country but that he can leave a detailed emergency voicemail that will only be heard by Mycroft. John does so and tries to think about what else he can possibly do.

The car finally arrives at its destination and Sherlock is dragged out of the back and into a modern, glass building fronting an attractive river walk. Following behind him is the woman who greeted him and John can see her face now. It’s bloody _Alice._ Thirteen flights of dark stairs leave John less than amused, and naturally it’s only at the top that he reaches his destination and his damsel-in-distress, who is handcuffed to an office chair and not in immediate danger of being skinned alive.

Ten minutes later, John is sailing through the air, helped along by the blast of Alice’s well-timed explosion and what comes after explosions? Water, whether in the form of a pool or the icy Thames. They are lucky - infinitely so - that they don’t spiral straight to the pavement or split themselves open on a dock or slam into the shallow banks. The force of the blast sends them further than John could have hoped and he stops thinking once he hits the water.

It’s so cold it knocks the breath from him, and it’s a miracle he has the strength of will to clamp his mouth shut and not inhale the freezing water. His feet touch bottom and he pushes himself up, finally panicking when it seems the surface is nowhere above him. His mouth opens and he sucks in one watery breath before his head breaks free and he coughs, spits, breathes air and adrenalin floods his system.

 _Sherlock._ Their hands unclasped in the wake of the blast and he has no idea where his friend is. “Sherlock!” He screams himself hoarse. Blue and red lights are flashing on the road now, and flaming debris continues to stream down from above. He imagines Sherlock’s body mangled and broken on the bank, or trapped in the water below, his pale face gone still, eyes rolled upward to the surface. John dives down, but he can’t see anything, it’s pitch black.

“Sherlock!” He is panicking completely now. Dark shapes float around him in the water and one of them looks Sherlock-shaped. He’s face-down, his coat and hair fanning out around him. John pulls him over, wraps an arm around his chest and swims them both to shore. Once there, on the muddy, rocky strip of bank, he goes through the motions of resuscitation. He’s on autopilot, his brain has long since learned to shut out the person and focus on strictly on the task. John spares no amount of strength as he pushes down, spares none of his own breath as he forces it into Sherlock’s lungs. When Sherlock gasps, coughs and vomits on the ground, John can let his relief flood back, and his head drops to his chest.

Torch light skims over them, intruding into their vision. There is shouting, but John has post-explosion ears and probably a fair bit of water in there as well. He lets the police swarm over them, hears the comforting sound of Lestrade’s voice and feels Donovan’s hands on his face. Water drips from his clothes, his hair, his eyes. Fog is drifting across the Thames now, icy water exhaling a white mist around them. Colors blur. He will never be warm again, he thinks of bitter silences in the flat, a melancholy, damaged Sherlock, a hopeless Doctor who will one day stop being lucky in saving Sherlock or being saved himself. He swims in and out of consciousness. He can’t speak, although there are questions, there are always questions.

The questions can wait.

~*~

Sherlock wakes in hospital, feeling like he’s had the longest, most relaxing nap of his life. He assesses his vital signs, notes the scratchy, over-washed bed sheets, the scrape on the side of John’s face, and that the two of them are in a private room at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, judging by the traffic sounds outside, window size and geographical location relative to their encounter.

John snores lightly. Sherlock wants to get up and check him over thoroughly, but he resists and lets the man sleep.

He checks the time. He has approximately twenty minutes until a nurse discovers he’s awake and presumably rings the whole of Scotland Yard so he can be badgered by Lestrade until he fakes unconsciousness.

Sherlock sits up and pulls his legs up under him, resting his chin on his knees. Everything is coming back to him in a rush, two weeks of not _seeing_ and it’s like a dam has broken and everything comes crashing in. He’s not the least bit worried, he’s ecstatic. He has twenty minutes to string it all together and if it only takes fifteen, what’s left over will be spent deducing his doctor’s marital problems by the state of his handwriting alone.

He stretches his hands up over his head, stares up at the ceiling, and smiles.

~*~

“You’re an insufferable git, you know that?”

Sherlock curls his toes with what looks like glee and quirks an eyebrow at John in response.

“Three days, Sherlock. Three days. We’ve been back in the flat less than 72 hours and you’ve exploded the toaster, dissected a brain on the coffee table and put two dead moles in the fridge. Your _toenails_ are all over the floor, you haven’t once done the shopping or paid for it and you’ve eaten all my biscuits.”

“John look, Mycroft sent me an iPhone 5. They don’t even exist yet. Should I keep it?” Sherlock waves a very slim device at him and then begins texting.

“I hate you,” John says, and retires to the kitchen. He comes straight back out. “There’s no tea.”

“You did say you were going to do the shopping.”

“I did not say I was, I said you haven’t done it.”

“I never do it.”

“This is my point. Stop texting. Sherlock!”

“John, less than 72 hours ago you were breathing air into my lungs and shouting “don’t die, you lovable bastard!” into my ear, which thank you, by the way, I still can’t hear properly, and now you’re trying to come between me and my brand new toy. If either of us is to be called insufferable, I think it’s you.”

“You can hear fine,” John retorts. “I didn’t yell in your ear, that’s ridiculous. No one yells _don’t die, you bastard_ after they’ve been blown out of a building and nearly drowned. It’s not a film.”

John puts on his coat and winds Sherlock’s scarf around his neck. It’s sunny outside, but still cold, and he’s been warned to watch out for his health. Sarah sacked him as gently as she could, and took over as his personal doctor and also Sherlock’s until John is back on his feet, which was a generous overture. John is secretly grateful, and happy for her continued friendship. She’s also put him onto a potential research grant, which would be perfect if he could get it. Telemedicine is something he’d be quite good at researching, and he’s been in the field, so he knows the value of it. He plans to start a blog about it and to begin interviewing some of his former fellow soldiers and Bart’s colleagues. Perhaps if he asks nicely, Mycroft will buy him an iPad for Christmas.

“If it was a film, your mouth-to-mouth would have resulted in a passionate kiss,” Sherlock says, giving him a languid-eyed look that John would jump on if they hadn’t already shagged twice this morning.

“It did, as I recall. A bit later, but that can be fixed in post production. We’ll just edit the whole ambulance and hospital stuff right out.”

“Let’s recast as well. I don’t want Anderson anywhere near our blockbuster.”

“He was a horror, wasn’t he?” John muses.

“To the outside world the moles in the fridge are part of one of my experiments, but between us, John, they will be used for a very elaborate and amusing prank on our dear friend Anderson.”

“Not only am I glad your genius is back, but I’m thrilled it’s being put to such excellent use.”

“Don’t sulk, John, it’s only been three days. I did give Lestrade an excellent first-hand account of our new crime queen, plus information to disable thirty illegally placed cameras and to block the CCTV and government database hacks. She’ll just reinvent new ways of course, it’s what she wanted, but no one else can take advantage of what Moriarty had in place.”

“Lucky he was killed in that blast, too,” John jokes.

“Lucky,” Sherlock agrees. John knows that they are forever in Mycroft’s debt for arranging _that_ , for even thinking of it in the midst of everything, and getting it done while being somewhere in the South Pacific. “Speaking of... Mycroft was here yesterday while you slept and he left me a gift.”

“iPhone, yes.”

“Okay, two gifts. This one is better, though. Can you guess?” Sherlock’s face is lit up like a child’s on Christmas. John is very afraid.

“Er...”

“This!” Sherlock rummages behind the sofa and pulls out a skull. It’s quite white and it doesn’t have teeth in the front.

“Oh my God, Sherlock, is that Moriarty?”

“ _Christ_ , John, _no_. What a vivid imagination you have. It’s Victor of course. Returned to me quite the worse for wear after a vigorous bleaching and a little Super Glue.”

“Okay...” John isn’t sure how pleased he is for Sherlock, but at least it isn’t Moriarty. He takes the skull from Sherlock and puts it back in pride of place on the mantel. “Right then, I’m off out. Shopping to do, lazy flatmates to cook and clean for.”

“Don’t forget the milk,” is Sherlock’s parting shot. John rolls his eyes. As if he ever forgets the milk. It must be an inside joke by now and Sherlock is pulling his leg.

As he rattles down the stairs he mentally adds condoms to the list. They’ve used up John’s meagre supply from his Army days, and Sherlock scoffs when John asks if _he_ has anything. “Not my area,” he says, waving his hand. “Well, until just recently.”

Sherlock can protest all he likes, but John thinks it may have once been his area. Hours after they’d been released and come home to 221B, they showered, shaved and fed themselves, and then Sherlock shouted “enough foreplay!” and pushed John up against the window. John had been standing in the sunshine, minding his own business and suddenly, his back was pressed against the warm glass and he was being manhandled out of his trousers. Sherlock knelt between his legs and nipped at his thighs, breathing him in and then swallowing him down without preamble. Any random passer-by on the street looking up would have seen a blond head thrown back and a body trembling and writhing on the sill. Depending on their imagination they would have thought someone was either having a seizure, being attacked by bees, or getting a blowjob.

John isn’t displeased that Sherlock’s libido has come back with his confidence and his intellect, but it just makes the man smugger than ever. Now Sherlock wants to fuck _him_ , and John is holding off on that, for one, because he isn’t sure he’s ready and for another, his body is sore all over from being blasted out of a thirteen-floor building, from having his shoulder sliced open, his extremities bound for hours and his fingers broken.

However, Sherlock the randy runaway bus is difficult to dodge. Though last night the message seemed to have got through, and the love-making was as gentle as possible. Sherlock’s cracked ribs earned him the top spot, where he was more than content to ride John slowly, press him down into the mattress with kisses until he arched back to get more leverage and to allow them to quickly reach the inevitable conclusion. John’s lungs hurt again from all the shouting.

The message had _not_ gotten through, apparently, as the following morning, _this very morning_ John reminds himself as he steps out onto Baker Street, Sherlock had manoeuvred him so that his face was in Sherlock’s crotch and John’s legs were astride Sherlock’s head. Sherlock guided him, slow and easy, down into his wet mouth and John did his best below, trying once again to imagine what would feel good, and wiping any thoughts of former lovers, porn and premature ejaculation from his mind.

Despite the relative success of _this_ experiment (he’d only kneed Sherlock in the face once), he was mauled in the shower and with liberal use of soaps and scented body wash, was brought to orgasm again with Sherlock’s long fingers pressing and insistent inside him, and a hand sliding up and down his cock. After, slumped against the tiles, too tired and worn out to get involved, Sherlock lazily masturbated over him, one hand braced on the wall, until he came over John’s stomach and the water went cold. Mrs Hudson could be heard banging on the pipes as a reminder not to waste water or use up all the hot. Sherlock made several unsuccessful attempts at witty bon mots about pipes and banging and John ignored him and took a nap in spite of the fact that it was only 10:00am.

Now he realises he is blushing as he strolls down Baker Street, a giddy smile on his face. Where this is all going, he has no idea. Sherlock will reach his limit of sexual experimentation and either John will leave or will simply become his domestic partner forever, picking up his socks with a pair of forceps and returning severed heads and hands to Bart’s. He hopes neither of those things happen. He hopes that he will soon stop hoping. He’s been on his own ragged trajectory for so long, it seems unreasonable to think that another person will join him or turn him around, least of all someone as erratic as Sherlock Holmes.

John reaches the corner and crosses over. He thinks he hears his name. He turns around and sees Sherlock on the other side, waving at him over the whizzing traffic. He stands patiently, waiting for his flatmate to shout “extra biscuits!” or “pickled onions” or something equally ridiculous. Yes, he will wait for Sherlock to cross. Yes he will pick up whatever extra shopping he wants. Yes. When it comes to Sherlock, the answer is always going to be yes.

~*~

After John’s departure, Sherlock presses his fingertips together and places them under his chin. There is so much thinking to do. Lestrade has handed over a large file of cold cases to keep him busy. He can open one right now. Instead, he thinks about John. A distraction, yes. Something new for both of them that could go horribly wrong depending on expectations, struggles with sexual identity and the fact that Sherlock can be a bit difficult at times. He is well aware of that.

He realises suddenly that he’s not going to start on the cold cases today. He’s going to count down the minutes until John returns. Which is completely ridiculous. Real couples do the shopping together, don’t they? He has no idea, but the off-chance that they do drives him up off the sofa and to his closet where clothes are thrown on hastily and a back-up scarf and a pair of expensive sunglasses are procured.

He easily catches up to John, who is moving slowly, practically limping along, poor fellow, feeling the effects of their misadventures more so than Sherlock who isn’t as concerned about a few bruises and cracked bones. John pauses at a corner to catch his breath and closes his eyes, seeming to enjoy the sun, weak as it is. Sherlock is on the corner opposite him, at an angle and lights are changing, red and green, traffic rushes by and harried people nearly knock him over as he stands stock still on the curb.

 _Hail fellow, well met,_ Sherlock thinks, slightly giddy. _Here we are at the corners where roads cross. I’m neither hurtling forward nor sliding back. We’ve intersected each other. Now which direction shall we travel?_

He waves at John and shouts. Eventually John turns around, the puzzled frown and pursed lips come into view. Little surprises. Sherlock will always love surprising John. _That, was amazing._

Sherlock readies himself for a quick dash across the street, in between the cars. No use wasting time. “Be my compass, John Watson,” Sherlock murmurs as he reaches where John is standing and links their arms.

“Yes,” John says, and smiles.

~*~END~*~


End file.
